THE MAFIA BOSS BURIED HIS WIFE TWO MONTHS AGO
The name sat on the tablet screen like a drop of cold grease on clean linen: Vincent.
Lorenzo DeLuca did not move for nearly a minute. The only sound in Isabella’s dressing room was the heavy ticking of the French carriage clock on the vanity and the muted rustle of the weeping willow branches outside the arched window. Beside him, Detective Rachel Ortiz leaned against the painted cedar molding, her hands buried in the pockets of her dark coat, watching his face with the quiet detachment of a seasoned homicide investigator.
Vincent Falcone was not merely Lorenzo’s underboss; he was his cousin. Their mothers were sisters born in the same stone village above Palermo. For twenty-two years, Vincent had handled the shipping logistics across the Hudson, the union negotiations at the Red Hook and North Pier terminals, and the private accounting ledgers that kept the family’s legitimate transport businesses from colliding with the federal tax authorities. When Isabella was buried two months ago, it was Vincent who had stood at the cemetery gates, turning away the society reporters, arranging the floral arrangements, and weeping into an embroidered handkerchief while the mahogany casket was lowered into the vault.
"He held the umbrella over my head at the gravesite," Lorenzo said, his voice flat, devoid of rage, stripped clean by the sheer weight of calculation. "He brought two cases of Barolo to the house that evening and told me that God takes the gentlest souls first."
Rachel shifted her weight, pulling a small leather notebook from her coat. "The email says North Pier vendors. For the past fourteen months, the Port Authority and the Waterfront Commission have been running a discreet audit into phantom freight invoices originating from the North Pier dry docks. Every time our financial crimes division tried to pull the manifest logs, the servers experienced convenient hardware failures. If Isabella found the secondary banking link before she went off the road, she wasn't just looking at embezzlement. She was looking at the reason someone would kill her."
"Isabella was an architect, not an accountant," Lorenzo murmured, his thumb resting against the glass of the tablet.
"She was also the executive director of the DeLuca Maritime Heritage Foundation," Rachel countered, stepping toward the vanity. "Every grant for the restoration of the historic piers crossed her desk. She wasn't stupid, Lorenzo. She understood procurement numbers. If Vincent was billing three times the market rate for structural steel that never arrived, Isabella would have spotted the discrepancy within twenty minutes of reviewing the quarterly balance sheets."
Lorenzo set the tablet down on the glass-topped vanity, right beside the crystal bottle of lavender perfume Isabella had worn on their wedding day. The scent was still there, faint and persistent, defying the passage of two months.
"Where is Vincent right now?" Lorenzo asked.
"He’s at the Red Hook terminal," Rachel answered. "According to his vehicle transponder, his black Cadillac crossed the Gowanus bridge forty minutes ago. But you are not going down there with an army, Lorenzo. If you move against Vincent outside the legal framework, you trigger an open gang war across three boroughs, and whoever is holding or hunting Isabella will move her into the river before the sun sets."
Lorenzo looked up, his gray eyes narrowing into razor-sharp slits. "My wife is sleeping on concrete in an abandoned freight yard, living on canned beans and wrapped in a torn coat with my dog. You think I care about the peace on the docks?"
"I think you care about keeping her alive," Rachel said, her voice dropping into a hard, uncompromising tone. "The blood sample from the warehouse floor showed elevated cortisol and inflammatory markers, but her hemoglobin was stable. She is weak, she is injured, but she is mobile. If Vincent discovers that Emma Walker saw her, or that we pulled that surveillance card from the utility box, he won't run. He will eliminate the loose ends. That means Sophia, that means Emma, and that means Isabella."
The door to the dressing room clicked open. Mason Reed stood in the frame, his tie loosened, holding a secure satellite phone.
"Lorenzo," Mason said quietly. "We have a hit on the gray SUV Sophia described."
Lorenzo was across the room in three strides. "Where?"
"An impound lot in Queens," Mason replied. "Belongs to a shell leasing company tied to Vincent’s brother-in-law. The vehicle was abandoned near the Brooklyn Navy Yard three hours ago. The front bumper has fresh yellow paint transfers matching the guardrails along the freight rail spur."
Lorenzo reached into his jacket, his hand closing around the heavy steel frame of his custom Sig Sauer. "Mason. Put twenty men around Sophia's quarters. If anyone approaches that wing without my personal clearance, put them in the ground. Then bring the car around."
May you like
"Lorenzo," Rachel warned, stepping into his path.
"You have your law, Detective," Lorenzo whispered, his face inches from hers, radiating the terrifying authority that had kept thirty captains in line for fifteen years. "I have my wife. Do your job, and I will do mine. But if my cousin touches one hair on Isabella’s head, there will not be enough of him left to bury in a potter's field."
