Behind glass, the city looked almost clean. Noise dulled. Cars looked like toys. The ocean was a flat stretch of steel under a pale sky.
Roman pushed the door open and stepped out. Theair outside carried the distant hum of traffic and the faint salt of the water. Vespiano handed him a cigar, then held the box out to me.
I took one. Vespiano lit both, then went back inside, closing the door enough that the noise inside became a murmur.
Roman took a long drag. Exhaled slow, smoke curling around his head.
“So,” he said. “Tell me why you’re suspiciously eyefucking the shit out of my consigliere, Alice. This isn’t like you to hold back or watch your tongue.”
I laughed once. It came out rough.
“You always were blunt,” I said.
“Blunt keeps people alive,” he said. “Pretty words get them buried. So. Vladimir. What about him makes you nervous?”
I watched the ember at the end of my cigar glow and fade.
“We found a ledger,” I said. “Came out of that bike. Leather. Old. Filled with neat handwriting and typed inserts. All Vincino businesses. Their fronts. Their shell companies. Their judges, cops, brokers and politicians. Who they pay. Who owes them.”
“That’s already a problem,” Roman said.
“Yeah,” I said. “But that’s not the part that makes my skin crawl. The ledger doesn’t just stop with what they have. It starts mapping what they want. There are sections on Giorlando assets. Casinos. Unions. Dock supervisors. Names flagged as ‘pressure points’ or ‘flip if possible’or ‘remove quietly.’ It’s essentially a playbook on how to peel pieces off your empire without collapsing the whole thing.”
His hand tightened slightly on the cigar. Ash fell and the wind took it.
“And?” he asked.
“And in the sections where they talk about bridging deals between the Russian Syndicate and the Bolivar Cartel, between those and other families, there’s repeated mention of ‘The Russian,’” I said. “No name. Just a title. Not a street-level hitter. Someone high enough to be a bridge. High enough to be a liability if he picks a side too late.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t blink.
“Plenty of Russians in our world, Alice,” Roman said eventually. “It’s a versatile nationality.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But not many of them sit in rooms like this as consigliere to men like you. And fewer still drink your liquor after someone used your dock to move a bike with a ledger that keeps calling ‘The Russian’ a pivot point. A bridge between enemies.”
His gaze cut sideways to the glass. Inside, Vladimir was laughing at something Mirage had said, teeth bright, glass in hand. Valentino hovered a few steps away, eyes never fully leaving us.
“Salvatore was at the docks when the bike was moved,” I said. “He talked about a big, anonymous buyer for it. No name. Just a six-figure price tag. There’s someone with money who wanted that ledger badly enough to moveit through your pier instead of their own. That means they either thought you were on board, or they thought your house had a leak they could use.”
Roman put his free hand on the railing. Knuckles whitened.
“You think it’s Vladimir?” he asked quietly. “You honestly think my consigliere is selling me?”
“I think his title matches lines in a book he shouldn’t be anywhere near,” I said. “I think the Vincinos aren’t usually stupid enough to write down everything that can kill them without multiple failsafes, which that ledger has. And I think if they keep circling the same ‘Russian’ as both asset and risk, you’d be stupid not to ask yourself what happens if he decides he wants his own slice instead of just a chair at your table.”
Roman studied me.
“And Salvatore?” he said. “You think he’s involved somehow?”
I sighed.
“Ambitious sons have toppled more than one empire,” I said. “If some kid wanted to fast-track himself to Don by bringing Vincino leverage to the table, being a kingmaker, introducing ‘friends’… it wouldn’t be the first time a family got gut-shot from the inside. I don’t know for a fact if it’s him. I don’t even know for certain if it’s Vladimir. I don’t know if I’m looking at the actual rat or a man the rat is just using as a mask.”
He took another long drag of his cigar.
“I’m not here to tell you who to shoot. I’m here to tellyou someone used your docks to move a warhead, and that same someone tried to kill my man when the delivery failed. That ledger named too many of your pieces for this to just be random. You need to be careful about who you trust while you figure out whether they were counting on your blessing or your blindness.”
Roman’s jaw flexed.
