The meeting ends with polite smiles that smell like fear. Hartley returns to his BMW; the Quinns move toward their Lincoln.
Connor's car pulls away first, disappearing into the streets of Manhattan's late-night commerce and early-morning ambition.
Hartley sits in his BMW too long—checking messages and rehearsing his words, maybe working up courage for his next lie. When his taillights finally fade into traffic, Yuri and I exchange a look that says the same thing in any language.
We follow Hartley's BMW through Manhattan's arterial maze, keeping three cars between us. The city's pulse thrums beneath my wheels as we navigate toward the Upper East Side, wherehonest money mingles with laundered bills and nobody asks uncomfortable questions.
His brake lights flare at East 73rd Street. The BMW slides into a parking space outside a brownstone that screams old money and older secrets. Federal architecture wrapped in ivy and privilege.
"Interesting neighborhood for a cultural commission director," Yuri mutters, checking the address against his phone. "Place like this runs eight million, minimum."
I park across the street, engine idling. Hartley emerges from his car, briefcase in hand, and climbs the brownstone's steps with the confidence of someone who belongs. No fumbling for keys, no hesitation. He punches in a security code and disappears inside.
Lights bloom in second-floor windows. Then the third floor. He's not just visiting.
"Run the property records," I tell Yuri.
Yuri's fingers dance across his phone screen. "Shell company, incorporated in Delaware three years ago. Registered agent with a law firm that specializes in anonymity."
"Creative." I watch shadows move behind expensive curtains. "Morrison dies, and his replacement already has an eight-million-dollar safety net?"
Something isn't right.
"Keep digging." I tap the dashboard, my mind already drawing connections that don't fit. "I want everything on Hartley. Find what he's hiding."
Yuri nods, already typing.
Maybe Morrison really did have a debt. Maybe he was the distraction. Either way, someone wanted him gone, and I need to know if Hartley helped pull the trigger or just stepped in to collect what was left. Morrison's seat in this operation wasn't small. It was leverage.
Morrison's killers swore Fee was off the list. The Quinns, too. I've heard vows like that before. They last about as long as the man who makes them. We'll see soon enough.
"Something's not clean about this guy," I say. "Morrison's contact steps in overnight with paperwork ready and a fortune in real estate? Someone's buying protection, or buying a grave."
I pull out my phone and scroll to a name that doesn't need an introduction.
Ruslan answers on the first ring. His voice is rough, half-asleep, but steady. He knows I don't call unless it's work. And work at this hour only means one thing.
"Truth extraction," I say.
A low laugh. "Old-fashioned way? Early morning hit to keep them off balance?"
"The only way that works."
"Where?"
"I'll pick you up."
"I'll be ready."
Ruslan cuts, nips, injects, whatever the truth requires. He's a surgeon without ethics, a butcher with purpose.
We'll hit them after a night that looks like any other: men stumbling home drunk, stories soft. The syringes he uses loosen memory the way heat loosens glue. Some drugs don't let a man wake up; sometimes a man doesn't leave at all.
Not this time. Too early to start the killing. Tonight, we want witnesses who remember nothing. We'll leave them high, confused, mouths full of static. Strategic mercy.
Keep the bodies off the books and the threads intact.
For the first time in two years, I have something that matters more than the job.
