Chapter 2 - THE PICTURE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHINGThe photo on my phone screen wasn't of the docks. It wasn't of Warehouse 4, or the military crates, or even little Elena Vasquez.
It was a picture of me.
Taken from inside a dark vehicle, through a telephoto lens, looking directly through the front windshield of my own bulletproof Maybach. I was sitting in the back seat, nursing a glass of scotch, while Bruno rested his massive head on my knee. The timestamp in the corner of the image read: Today, 10:14 AM.
Right outside the funeral home.
Beneath the image, the text message read: Marco was just the errand boy, boss. Come alone to the old pier at midnight if you want to know who really gave the order.
My thumb hovered over the screen. The funeral home felt suddenly suffocating, the air thick with invisible eyes. I looked back at Bruno. The dog hadn't moved from the coffin, but his ears were flicking back and forth, picking up frequencies I couldn't hear, sensing shifts in the environment that my human senses were blind to.
"Boss?"
Paulie stepped back into the chapel, breathless, holding his jacket tight against the chill. He looked around nervously, sensing the sudden change in my posture. "Tony’s waiting down at the plant. We got Marco secured. You want us to bring the car around?"
"No," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "Change of plans."
"Change of plans? Boss, what about Marco?"
"Marco stays tied to that chair. Nobody touches him until I get back." I slipped my phone into my tailored wool coat pocket. "Paulie, how many men do we have stationed outside?"
"Four cars. Twelve guys total. Standard detail."
"Pull them all back. Every single one of them."
Paulie’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. "Pull them back? Boss, are you out of your mind? With what’s going down tonight, half the Italian families in Brooklyn are sniffing around our turf—"
"I said pull them back, Paulie," I snapped, turning my gaze onto him with enough ice to freeze the Atlantic. "If anyone asks, tell them I'm handling a private family matter. No tails, no backup, no radios."
Paulie swallowed hard, knowing better than to argue when my tone dropped into that lethal register. "Understood, boss. But... what about you? Who's going with you?"
May you like
I looked down at the floor. A massive, one-hundred-and-twenty-pound mass of muscle and bone slowly rose to its feet, stretching its powerful legs, shaking its heavy head. Bruno looked up at me with intelligent, amber eyes that seemed to hold the wisdom of a hundred lifetimes.
"Just me and the dog," I said.
