I nodded. “There are whole pages where RS and BC overlap. Shared routes. Shared shipments. Shared names. Some of those names have question marksnext to them. Like whoever wrote this wasn’t sure if those people belong to the Russian Syndicate or someone else. There’s a title that comes up a lot there. Just ‘The Russian.’ No first name. No last name.”
The room went still.
Valkyrie cut in. “And you think…?” she started.
“Roman’s consigliere is Vladimir Yegorovich,” 8-Ball said slowly. “They call him The Russian. Everyone does. Even us.”
“Could just be coincidence,” I said. “Or it could be a different one. This could even be his ledger, or they’re three moves ahead and planning how to peel him off to work for them. Or he’s playing both sides already. Or they want him out of the way. I don’t know for sure. But his title and his general description match some of the scouting notes.”
“Of course it’s Vladimir,” Liberty muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Men in suits named Vladimir are never simple. You can’t take him at face value.”
8-Ball exhaled. “So, this isn’t just Vincino’s grocery list,” he said. “It’s a playbook. For how to hit Roman’s empire without bringing the whole city down on their head. Or at least how to try. And their main focus, or point of contact, seems to be Vladimir.”
“There’s more,” I said. I turned to one of the back tabs. “These pages are different. They’re less about money and more about… contingencies. Mentions of ‘secure mirrors.’ ‘Fail-safe nodes.’ ‘Dead drop data.’ A couple of line items literally have notes next to them like ‘release if compromised’ or ‘send package to mutual friends if code X is not reset in ninety days.’”
“Kill switches,” Rosé said quietly.
“Yeah,” I replied. “That’s my read too. This book might not be the only copy of this information. These devices in the bag are probably hooked into something bigger. Servers. Vaults. Who knows. If one of the people who runs this thing dies or disappears, it looks like there’s a plan for the ledger to get duplicated and sent out into the world as revenge or insurance. Or certain information to be made public to bring down an empire.”
“So, if we torch it,” Liberty said, eyes flat, “we might just set off that fail-safe. If we keep it, the people who built it will assume we have read it and will come for us anyway. If we sell it, whoever buys it either becomes a goddamn kingpin overnight or uses it as a bomb to blow up everyone on the East Coast.”
“Pretty much,” I replied. “So, pick your poison.”
Silence fell. Heavy. The kind that sits in your lungs.
Turnpike shifted. “Why not just drop it on the Feds’ doorstep?” he asked. “Anonymously. Let them freak out instead.”
“Because the minute that happens,” 8-Ball said, “everyone mentioned in that book goes rabid. Cartels, Russians, Yakuza, Philly, maybe even Roman himself. They’ll start asking why their business wound up in a Fed’s hands. Nobody believes in coincidences at that level. They go looking for everyone who touched it. Even if we never wrote our names, they follow the trail. It starts at that hot drop, then the wreck, goesthrough the hospital, through the junkyard, through this clubhouse, and through ours. We would be lighting a match to every bridge we have and destroying ourselves along with everyone else.”
“Plus,” I added, “we have no idea if the Feds already have a piece of this or not. We drop a clean copy on them, we might just push them into clearance mode.” I mimed pulling a trigger. “No witnesses. No loose ends. No informants left breathing. That book doesn’t just make us dangerous to criminals. It makes us dangerous to anyone who wants to keep their quiet little deals running. We don’t know who’s connected, who’s involved, or who to trust.”
Liberty leaned back in her chair and stared at the ledger like it was something alive. “If it were me,” she said, “if I had found that in a bike and there were no witnesses, wasn’t a part of a hot drop, and there were no hits yet, I might’ve burned it. No trace. No one ever knows it existed. No one ever knows it vanished.”
“That’s the problem though,” Blackjack said over the speaker. “This was supposed to be delivered. It wasn’t. Whoever paid for it knows that. They know we were the ones moving it. They know the bike’s missing. They obviously know one of ours wrecked. Whether or not they know about the contents being found that were inside of it, they’ll have to operate on assuming that someone opened it. And due to that, every name attached to it from there on becomes a potential liability.”
“Us,” I said. “Miami. Those on theGiorlando docks. Whoever on Roman’s side signed off on that shipment. Salvatore. Maybe even Vladimir himself. And now you.”
Liberty’s eyes flicked up and met mine. “Cute,” she said. “You brought us a bomb as a friendship offering.”
“It landed in our lap,” I said. “We didn’t ask for it. You stepped in when they tried to finish Miami in your hospital. That makes you part of this whether any of us like it or not.”
She nodded once. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
For a second, the hardness dropped from her face, and I saw the weight underneath. The calculus. Her girls. Her bars. Her beds. The women under this roof who had crawled out of worse hells than this and just wanted a place the monsters didn’t reach.
She straightened. The blade slid back into place.
“All right, here’s how this is going to go.”
We all listened.
“That bag doesn’t leave this building without me and Blackjack’s say,” she said. “Joint custody. It moves only when we both agree. If one of us catches wind that someone is sniffing around looking for it, we tell the other immediately. No secrets. No hoping it will go away. We’re in this together now.”
8-Ball nodded. “Agreed,” he said.
“We put eyes on every point this touches,” she went on. “Miami stays under watch at the hospital. Birdie has him. Mink has an eye on law enforcement channels. Any suit or cop looks at his chart funny,we’ll know. You keep your boys watching your end. The docks, the casinos, your clubhouse. We put our girls on our bars, our streets, our usual pipeline. Anyone new sniffing around, asking the wrong questions, carrying themselves like more than a drunk, we flag it.”
“Copy that,” Blackjack said. “We’ll increase coverage on the piers. Mirage will work the money angle, see if any of our regular flow looks off. Snake Eyes is already shaking his trees.”
