I look up to see Timothy from records standing in front of my desk, manila folder in hand.
"That file you requested about informants, I still can’t find it, but I’ve found this which might help.”
"I'll take a look. Thanks."
After he leaves, I carefully open the file. Inside are reports I've never seen before.
Surveillance logs, payment records, and handler notes for an informant named Ernie Abruzzo.
The name makes me stop cold. Isn’t that the man Dom mentioned as being an informant connected to Mrs. Ferraza's murder.
The date on the last handler note is one day before she was killed.
I stare at the file, as pieces of this puzzle start falling into place to make a picture I don’t want to see.
Ernie Abruzzo. Informant. Handler: Special Agent Victor Blackwood.
"Oh God." I scan the notes with growing dread.
October 12: Subject reports Mrs. F concerned about daughter's future. Potential leverage point established.
October 19: Subject instructed to offer assistance to Mrs. F regarding daughter's situation. Will use to gain intel on council meetings.
October 27: Subject reports Mrs. F willing to share council information in exchange for daughter's extraction from family. Moving to phase two.
The pattern continues through dozens of entries, each more damning than the last. Blackwood wasn't just running Ernie as an informant, he was actively manipulating Mrs. Ferraza through him, using her daughter, Isabella, as bait.
That’s not illegal, but it feels horribly unethical. Women in the mafia world seem to have so little agency. Using them, putting them in danger, doesn’t sit well with me.
It’s why I handed over Mrs. Ferraza’s notebook to Isabella when she called me out for using her grief and her mother’s death to gain information about La Corona.
I reach the final entry, dated the day before Mrs. Ferraza's murder: Subject becoming liability. Mrs. F expressing doubts about arrangement. Informant says she’s going to expose the operation. Containment measures may be necessary.
Containment measures. The FBI's euphemism for shutting down an operation. But then I think about Mrs. Ferraza’s murder and wonder if in this case, it meant something else entirely.
No. Blackwood can be overly focused and push the envelope, but he wouldn’t resort to murder to achieve his goal of putting La Corona behind bars.
I stare at the phrase "containment measures" until the words blur together. My training tells me this could mean anything from terminating the informant relationship to witness protection. But the worry in my gut tells me this could be something darker.
The official report on Mrs. Ferraza's death sits in another folder on my desk. I glance to Blackwood’s office, verifying he’s in there and not watching me.
I flip open the file, scanning the details I've read a dozen times before.
Victim of a drive-by shooting outside a boutique. Not the intended target, just wrong place, wrong time. The investigation concluded it was likely gang-related violence aimed at someone else on the street.
But Dom's words echo in my head: “Are you aware that two of your informants killed Don Ferraza’s wife?”
Two?
I spread both files side by side, comparing timestamps and locations. The day after Blackwood's "containment measures" note, Mrs. Ferraza was shopping at exactly the time and location mentioned in Ernie's previous handler notes as her "regular Tuesday routine."
My heart pounds as the implication, something a moment ago I dismissed, is growing. This wasn't random. This was a setup. But was it Ernie on his own trying to salvage his relationship with Blackwood? And who is the other informant?
I pull up Ernie's file on my computer.
Known associate of the Calabresi family through his brother Sal, but never officially inducted.
Small-time criminal record.
