I forced myself to move to the kitchen, to pour a glass of water, to breathe. The apartment suddenly felt too small, the walls pressing in. I'd lived here for two years, and I'd never felt unsafe before. The neighborhood was good, the building secure. I was just tired. Stressed. Letting my anxiety spiral into irrational territory.
My phone rang, the shrill sound making me yelp. I grabbed it off the counter, expecting Lisa. Instead, the screen showed "Dad."
I considered not answering. But Blanchards always answered their phones.
"Hi, Dad."
"Gabrielle." His voice was clipped, businesslike. "You're up late."
"Just got home from drinks with a friend."
A pause. I could practically hear his disapproval. "I trust you're still on schedule with the Brown report."
Of course that's why he was calling. Not to check if I was okay, not to say he missed me. To make sure I wasn't failing.
"It's done," I said. "Submitting it first thing tomorrow."
"Good. I've been speaking with some colleagues at the firm. They tell me a senior position might be opening up soon. I expect you to put yourself forward for it."
"I will."
"No room for second-guessing, Gabrielle. The Blanchard name means something. You will not tarnish it with mediocrity."
"I won't."
Another pause. I waited for him to ask how I was, to show even a flicker of paternal interest. Instead: "I have an early meeting. Don't disappoint me."
The line went dead.
I stood in my kitchen, phone pressed to my ear, listening to the dial tone. Don't disappoint me. The words I'd heard my entire life. The condition of his love.
I set down the phone and walked to the living room window. The SUV was gone.
See? I told myself. Nothing. You imagined the whole thing.
But as I brushed my teeth and changed into pajamas, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I couldn't shake the feeling that something had shifted tonight. That I'd been noticed by something dangerous.
And I had no idea how right I was.
Chapter 2 - Vasily
The man's screams had stopped five minutes ago. Now there was only the wet sound of labored breathing and the drip of blood onto concrete.
I stepped closer, my shoes immaculate despite the mess on the warehouse floor. This building in Red Hook had served my family for twenty years—my father had conducted similar business here when I was still a boy learning the trade. The walls had absorbed generations of confessions, pleas, and final breaths. If they could talk, they'd have enough secrets to bring down half the criminal enterprises on the Eastern Seaboard.
Tonight's subject was a bartender named Marco. He'd worked at The Trophy Room for eight months—long enough to learn the rhythms of the place, to understand when the managers were distracted, to figure out exactly how much he could skim before the registers would flag discrepancies. He'd been clever about it, taking only cash, never more than two or three hundred a week. The kind of small-time theft that might go unnoticed at a legitimate establishment.
But The Trophy Room wasn't legitimate. None of my six nightclubs was, despite what their tax filings claimed. And I noticed everything.
Dmitri, one of my senior enforcers, stepped back to give me room. His knuckles were split and swollen, blood drying in the creases of his fingers. He'd done good work tonight—thorough but controlled. Marco was broken but still breathing, still capable of speech. That was the balance you needed in these situations. Dead men couldn't spread warnings.
I crouched to meet Marco's swollen eyes. One had puffed completely shut; the other tracked my movement with the desperate focus of a trapped animal.
"I'll ask once more," I said, keeping my voice conversational. Almost gentle. I'd learned from my father that quiet menace unsettled men far more than shouting. "Who told you it was acceptable to skim from my club?"
He tried to speak, but his jaw wasn't working properly anymore. I waited while he gathered himself, while he spat blood onto the concrete and forced words through broken teeth.
"Nobody—I swear—I just thought—"
