Page 56 of The Hidden Heir

The boy glances back at the apartment he just came out of. “Over there, on that side. So, I got up and saw it. The truck. Right where you guys found it.”

“What happened?”

“Some guys came out of the woodwork. Looked like they were waiting for it. They had someone posted in the middle of the road. I think he’s the one who jumped out first and stopped the truck. Then the others joined him.”

My mind is already picking up a pattern, but I need more information. “How many men?”

“Uh, four, I think.”

“Including the first guy?”

“No. Five in total, including the first guy,” the boy says. “It was quick, I can tell you that much. I saw the guns, and that’s when I hid. The window’s half broken, though, so I could still hear them pretty well. The gunshots.

Pop-pop-pop-pop.

I mean, I think they emptied their clips in the driver. The guy didn’t stand a chance. He cried out around the first pop, but then nothing.”

My blood runs cold. The driver was one of ours. A hard worker, likely with a wife and children to go home to every night. Someone’s going to have to tell them he isn’t coming home tonight.

“Then they went for the truck. Another truck came in. I heard it. But I was too afraid to look. I was worried they’d see me,” the boy says.

“Alright. What did you hear?”

“Not much. They emptied the truck they hit and loaded the other one. Kept saying to hurry up, hurry up. Load it up.” The boy pauses, giving me a wide-eyed look. “I heard someone say Lanny. One of them was called Lanny.”

“Lanny,” I mutter.

“Does that mean anything to you?” the boy asks.

I shake my head slowly. “No. But it’s useful information. Did you get a look at their faces before you ducked?”

“Nah. they sounded white, though,” he says. “You live in the streets long enough, and something like that goes down, you learn to pay attention, to listen, to know who to avoid.”

“Thank you,” I tell the boy and give him another hundred. “Anything else?”

He thinks about it for a long second, by now eager to help, considering the remuneration he already received for what little he could provide. “Their truck didn’t go back this way. It didn’t get louder. It went south.”

“Okay, that’s good to know.”

I nod, a gesture of gratitude, and make my way back down the stairs while he scuttles back to the empty apartment, likely content that he doesn’t have to get out of there as fast as he thought.

Once I meet with Victor downstairs again, I give him something to work with.

“Five men. No tail. They knew the truck was coming through here,” I say as we walk farther down the road, hoping to find another eyewitness, another piece of the puzzle. “They killed our driver straight away. No warning, no order. Straight up murder.”

“Targeted,” Victor replies.

“One of them was named Lanny. It’s all I could get from the homeless kid. We might need more,” I say. “But in the meantime, maybe Lanny will pop up somewhere for the right price. Put a reward out.”

Victor’s gaze is troubled. “Are you sure about this? The people behind it will likely hear about it, too.”

“There’s a Camorra council happening at the worst possible time for us. The last thing I need is to give anyone the impression that I’m not on top of this,” I reply. “They need to know I can track anybody down, if that’s what it takes. Make the reward a generous one. If it doesn’t get us Lanny directly, it might at least smoke him out.”

Someone is gunning for my empire, my woman, and possibly my nephew. There are few of us left in a world that loves to eat its young, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let any of the ones I love go quietly into that dark and cold night.

I may not deserve it, yet this is my closest chance at a happy ending. So, I will rain fire and blood on anybody who gets in my way. Valentina is mine. The Petrucci syndicate is mine. And Michael deserves a brighter future.

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