With Seven Dollars Left, I Trusted New York's Most Feared Mafia Boss

We left the storage facility through a service corridor while Vincent's men blocked the alley.

I was shaking so badly I could not fasten my seat belt.

Vincent reached toward me, stopped, and waited.

"Can I?"

I nodded.

He clicked the belt into place.

That tiny question - can I? - nearly broke me.

The man I had loved had spent two years making decisions on my behalf without asking. The man I was supposed to fear kept asking permission for the smallest things.

I did not know what to do with that.

Marco climbed into the front seat.

"We have traffic cameras on three intersections. We may get a vehicle."

Vincent touched the cut on his cheek and looked at the blood on his fingers.

"Who knew we were going?"

"You. Me. Two drivers. Three men on advance."

"Dominic?"

"No."

"Anyone at the building?"

"Manager saw the team before Ms. Mercer arrived."

"Then assume every person who knew is compromised until proven otherwise."

Marco's face tightened.

"Including me?"

Vincent met his eyes in the mirror.

"Including me."

For the first time, Marco looked offended.

I noticed.

Vincent noticed me noticing.

Neither of us said anything.

Back at the apartment, the flash drive sat on the kitchen counter like a loaded weapon.

"David said not to let you have it," I said.

"I remember."

"You're not going to demand it?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because if I take it from you, then every word he wrote becomes more believable."

That answer irritated me because it was smart.

"So what do we do?"

"You decide."

I stared at the drive.

Then I slid it toward him.

"We open it together."

Vincent called a cybersecurity specialist named Priya Shah, who arrived within an hour with two laptops and no visible interest in the drama around her.

"I was told this may contain financial records," she said.

"And malware," Vincent added.

Priya looked at me.

"So we're not plugging it into your personal computer."

"I wasn't planning to."

"Good. You're already smarter than most executives."

She worked at the dining table while I sat across from her. Vincent paced near the windows. Marco stood by the door.

The first layer of the drive contained ordinary documents: scanned invoices, bank statements, corporate registrations.

Then Priya found the hidden partition.

"Encrypted," she said.

"Can you open it?" Vincent asked.

"Probably. Not quickly."

I leaned closer.

A list of file names appeared on the screen.

Most were random numbers.

One made my pulse jump.

RM_0314.

"That's me."

Priya looked at me.

"Initials?"

"Rowan Mercer. March fourteenth is my birthday."

She clicked it.

Password prompt.

I tried my birthday.

Wrong.

David's birthday.

Wrong.

Our anniversary.

Wrong.

Then I remembered something stupid.

A joke from our first date. He had asked what I would do if I suddenly had a million dollars. I said I would disappear somewhere nobody could find me and order pancakes every morning.

He had called me Pancake Fugitive for weeks.

I typed PANCAKEFUGITIVE.

The file opened.

I felt sick.

Inside were copies of bank transfers from Northstar Holdings to seven different companies. One payment went to a construction firm. One to a consulting company. One to a charity.

And one - $85,000 - had gone to an account ending in 4419.

Vincent stopped pacing.

"Zoom in."

Priya did.

Beneficiary: D. Moretti.

I looked at him.

"Dominic?"

His face had gone cold.

Marco stepped closer.

"Could be."

"Could be forged," Vincent said.

"It has his initial and surname."

"That isn't proof."

Something in his tone made Marco back off.

I scrolled farther.

The transfer date was eight months earlier.

Then I saw another file.

A photo.

David standing outside a restaurant with Dominic Moretti.

I turned the laptop toward Vincent.

His expression did not move.

"He said he barely knew him," I whispered.

"He lied."

"Your brother lied."

"Yes."

The room went silent.

Vincent called Dominic.

No answer.

Again.

No answer.

Marco reached for his coat.

"I'll find him."

"No," Vincent said.

Marco paused.

"Boss-"

"You stay here."

That offended look returned.

"You think I'm leaking information."

"I think a shooter was waiting at a storage unit only six people knew about. Until I understand how, nobody moves without my approval."

Marco's jaw clenched.

"Understood."

He walked into the hallway and shut the door harder than necessary.

I looked at Vincent.

"You trust him?"

"I have for eleven years."

"That's not what I asked."

He gave me a tired look.

"Yesterday I would have said yes without hesitation. Today I'm learning hesitation can keep people alive."

Priya cleared her throat.

"There's more."

She opened a spreadsheet.

Rows of names, dates, amounts, locations.

I recognized none of them.

Vincent recognized several.

"These are payments," he said.

"For what?"

"Information. Protection. Political favors. Maybe worse."

"Vale?"

"Some could be."

Priya pointed at a column on the far right.

"These entries were modified recently. Metadata says three days ago."

"Can you tell by who?"

"Not yet. But the original file was created ten months ago."

I stared at the dates.

Something felt wrong.

"Wait."

I took the laptop.

"These amounts repeat."

Vincent leaned over my shoulder.

"What?"

"Look. Eighty-five thousand. Then forty-two five. Then twenty-one two fifty. Each one is half the previous amount."

Priya nodded.

"A split chain."

"But the dates are wrong."

"How do you know?" Vincent asked.

"Because David was obsessive about quarter-end dates. He used to complain about clients who moved money on weekends because it made reports messy. These transfers are all dated Saturdays."

Priya checked.

"She's right."

"So?"

"So either he suddenly stopped caring about the thing he complained about every week for two years, or somebody changed the dates."

Priya began comparing metadata.

Five minutes later, she sat back.

"Rowan's right. The date fields were altered. The underlying transaction IDs suggest they happened on weekdays."

Vincent's eyes sharpened.

"Can you recover the originals?"

"Some."

One by one, the Saturday dates changed.

The Dominic Moretti transfer moved from eight months ago to seventeen months ago.

I frowned.

"That was before David and I opened the joint account."

"Does that matter?" Vincent asked.

"Maybe. David told me he met a client in Queens that exact week. He came home with a cut over his eye. Said he slipped on ice."

Vincent stared at the photo of David and Dominic.

His phone rang.

Dominic.

Vincent answered on speaker.

"Where are you?"

"On my way to you."

"Why did you lie about Elliot Dane?"

Silence.

"Dominic."

"Because I knew what you'd think."

"Try me."

A long exhale came through the phone.

"He worked for Vale, yes. But he also worked for me."

My heart hammered.

"Doing what?" Vincent asked.

"Moving money. Taking bets. Finding people who owed the wrong people. Nothing you need details on."

"Did he owe you thirty thousand dollars?"

"No."

"Did he steal from you?"

Another silence.

"Dominic."

"He stole from someone. I don't know who. He came to me four months ago asking for protection. I told him no."

"Why?"

"Because he had information about Vale, and I knew if I touched it, I'd drag us into another war."

I stood so fast the chair scraped back.

"You knew he was in danger and you let him live with me?"

Dominic stopped breathing on the line.

"Who is that?"

"Rowan Mercer," I snapped. "The woman you supposedly didn't know existed."

"I didn't."

"You knew David had someone?"

"I knew he talked about a girlfriend. I didn't know your name."

"Did you send collectors to my apartment?"

"No."

"Did you burn it?"

"No."

"Did you know somebody planned to kill me?"

"No."

My throat tightened.

"Then what did you know?"

Dominic's voice lowered.

"I knew Elliot was scared."

"Of Vale?"

"No."

The room went silent.

Dominic continued.

"He told me Vale was only half the problem. He said someone close to Vincent was feeding Vale information. Someone high enough to touch Vincent's private seal."

I looked at Marco's closed door.

Vincent did the same.

"Who?" Vincent asked.

"He wouldn't say. Said he needed proof first."

Priya's laptop chimed.

A hidden video file finished decrypting.

We all turned toward the screen.

David appeared in a dim room, filmed from his own laptop.

His face looked thinner than I remembered.

Scared.

He leaned toward the camera.

"Rowan, if you found this, I failed. I'm sorry. I know that's worthless now. But listen carefully. The thirty-thousand-dollar debt isn't real. Friday isn't the deadline."

I stopped breathing.

David looked over his shoulder as if he had heard something.

Then he faced the camera again.

"If they gave you the letter with the broken-tail mark, you have less time than you think. And if Vincent Moretti is standing beside you when you see this..."

His eyes seemed to look straight through the screen.

"...one of the men he trusts most is already working for Sebastian Vale."

The video ended.

No name.

No proof.