Chapter 2 - The Man Gerardo Was Supposed to Kill Knew Molly’s FatherThrough the narrow opening of the Venetian Room door, Molly saw a man on his knees.
He was perhaps fifty-five, though fear had aged him another decade in the space of an hour. His expensive gray suit was wrinkled. Blood darkened the corner of his mouth. Two of Gerardo Romani’s men stood behind him.
Gerardo sat at the head of the long mahogany table.
He did not look angry.
That frightened Molly more.
Angry men made mistakes.
Gerardo looked like a judge who had already read the verdict.
“You took eight hundred thousand dollars,” he said.
The kneeling man swallowed.
“I borrowed it.”
“You moved it through three shell companies.”
“I was going to put it back.”
“People who intend to return money usually don’t falsify my signatures.”
The man’s face collapsed.
“Gerardo—”
“Mr. Romani.”
The correction was quiet.
The man immediately lowered his eyes.
“Mr. Romani, please. I have a daughter.”
“So did the accountant whose identity you used.”
The room went silent.
Molly should have walked away.
Instead, she remained beside the cracked door, one hand gripping the handle of her cleaning cart.
Then the kneeling man said something that stopped her heart.
“I can give you Warner.”
Gerardo’s expression changed.
Barely.
But Molly saw it.
“What did you say?”
“Warner.”
The man breathed heavily.
“James Warner.”
Molly forgot how to breathe.
Her father had been dead for seventeen years.
She had not heard his full name spoken aloud by another human being in nearly a decade.
Gerardo leaned forward.
“James Warner is dead.”
“I know.”
“Then he is not particularly useful to me.”
“I don’t mean James.”
The man looked up.
“I mean what he left behind.”
Molly’s fingers tightened around the cart until her knuckles turned white.
Gerardo stared at him.
“Continue.”
“There was a ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“The original accounts from the old East River operation. Payments. Judges. Union officials. Police. Contractors. Everybody.”
“That operation disappeared before I controlled Manhattan.”
“Yes.”
“Who had the ledger?”
The kneeling man hesitated.
“James Warner.”
Molly’s stomach dropped.
Her father had been a warehouse supervisor.
At least that was what her mother had told her.
He gambled.
He borrowed money.
He lost too much.
Men came to the house.
Then the house burned.
That was the story Molly had carried for seventeen years.
Suddenly, it sounded like a lie.
Gerardo’s voice became colder.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
The man behind the kneeling figure struck him across the back of the head.
He collapsed onto his hands.
“I swear!”
He gasped.
“I never knew. Warner disappeared with it before the fire.”
The fire.
Molly took one involuntary step backward.
A wheel on the cleaning cart squeaked.
Inside the room, every voice stopped.
Molly froze.
Gerardo turned his head toward the door.
“Open it.”
She had approximately three seconds to decide whether to run.
Running would confirm she had heard everything.
Staying might get her killed.
Molly pushed the door open.
Six men looked at her.
The kneeling man stared.
Gerardo’s eyes became unreadable.
Molly lifted the spray bottle in her hand.
“The door was open.”
Nobody answered.
“I was told to clean this room.”
One of Gerardo’s lieutenants moved toward her.
Gerardo lifted two fingers.
The man stopped.
Gerardo studied Molly.
“How long were you standing there?”
“Long enough.”
A lieutenant muttered a curse.
Gerardo’s expression remained calm.
“What did you hear?”
Molly considered lying.
Then she remembered who she was talking to.
“James Warner.”
The kneeling man’s head snapped toward her.
His eyes dropped to the name tag on her uniform.
MOLLY.
Something horrifying appeared on his face.
Recognition.
“Jesus Christ.”
Gerardo saw it.
“What?”
The man stared at Molly.
“Warner.”
Molly felt cold.
Gerardo slowly stood.
The room suddenly seemed much smaller.
“What about her?”
The man pointed.
“That’s his kid.”
Nobody moved.
Gerardo looked at Molly.
For the first time since meeting him, she saw genuine surprise.
Not theatrical curiosity.
Not intimidation.
Surprise.
“You knew my father?” Molly asked.
The man’s lips trembled.
“I knew of him.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Gerardo’s gaze shifted between them.
The kneeling man seemed to understand that his life had just acquired temporary value.
“Yes.”
Molly stepped closer.
“Then tell me why my house burned.”
The man looked at Gerardo.
“Tell her,” Gerardo said.
“It wasn’t gambling.”
Molly’s ears rang.
“What?”
“Your father had debts, sure. Everybody knew that. But that wasn’t why they killed him.”
Her throat tightened.
“Who killed him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I know who ordered people to find the ledger. I don’t know who actually lit the fire.”
“Who?”
The man looked at Gerardo again.
Gerardo’s jaw tightened.
“Say the name.”
“Salvatore Romani.”
The world seemed to tilt.
Molly turned toward Gerardo.
He had become completely still.
“Romani?”
Her voice barely worked.
The kneeling man nodded.
“Gerardo’s father.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Molly looked at the man she had spent two weeks serving.
The man whose attention had terrified an entire restaurant.
The man whose family name had apparently been connected to the night that destroyed hers.
Gerardo did not deny it.
That hurt more than denial would have.
Molly backed toward the door.
“Molly.”
She looked at him.
“Don’t.”
Gerardo took one step.
She grabbed a steak knife from the service cart.
Three guns appeared instantly.
Gerardo’s voice cracked through the room.
“Put them away.”
Nobody moved.
“I said put them away.”
The weapons disappeared.
Molly held the knife between them.
It was ridiculous.
A waitress holding a restaurant knife against the most feared organized-crime figure in New York.
Yet Gerardo did not laugh.
“Did you know?” she asked.
“About your father? No.”
“Did you know your father burned houses?”
Gerardo said nothing.
That was enough.
“You knew what he was.”
“Yes.”
Molly nodded slowly.
Something inside her seemed to break without making a sound.
“All this time, you were sitting at my table asking about my scars.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You asked about the burn.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You looked at it.”
His eyes dropped toward the crescent scar on her arm.
“Molly—”
“Don’t say my name like you have the right.”
Gerardo stopped.
She placed the knife on the table.
Then she looked at the kneeling man.
“What’s your name?”
“Elliot Vance.”
“Where is the ledger?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“My father died for it.”
“Yes.”
“My mother spent nine years running because of it.”
Vance looked confused.
“Running?”
Molly stared.
“What?”
“Your mother wasn’t supposed to run.”
“What does that mean?”
Vance’s face drained.
Gerardo noticed.
“Answer her.”
“I thought Evelyn Warner made a deal.”
Molly’s heartbeat thundered.
“With who?”
Vance shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Gerardo walked around the table.
“Tonight is becoming inconvenient for you, Elliot.”
“I swear, I don’t know everything.”
“Then tell us what you do know.”
Vance closed his eyes.
“After James died, people searched the house. Nothing. They searched bank boxes, storage lockers, his workplace. Nothing. Then Evelyn disappeared with the girl.”
Molly remembered motels.
Fake names.
Bus stations.
Her mother checking windows at three in the morning.
“Someone believed she had it?”
“Yes.”
“For seventeen years?”
“Maybe.”
Molly thought about the collection notices.
James Warner’s estate.
Debts that should have disappeared years ago.
Collectors who somehow found her every time she moved.
Her blood went cold.
“They weren’t collecting debt.”
Gerardo looked at her.
“No.”
“They were looking for something.”
“Yes.”
Molly turned toward him.
“You knew?”
“I know now.”
The realization struck with terrifying clarity.
The notices.
The calls.
The men who occasionally sat in parked cars across from her apartment.
She had spent years assuming poverty had a long memory.
Maybe somebody else did.
“I’m leaving.”
Gerardo blocked the door.
Molly looked up.
“Move.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Someone has spent seventeen years looking for something they think your family possessed.”
“That’s my problem.”
“It became my problem when my father’s name entered the conversation.”
“I don’t care about your family problems.”
“You should.”
She stared at him.
Gerardo lowered his voice.
“Because if Vance knows who you are, other people may know too.”
Molly’s anger collided with fear.
She hated that he was making sense.
“I survived before you.”
“I know.”
“I don’t need protection.”
“Perhaps not.”
“Then move.”
Gerardo stepped aside.
His lieutenants looked shocked.
Molly walked past him.
At the doorway, Gerardo spoke.
“My father died six years ago.”
She stopped but did not turn.
“I buried him without mourning him.”
Molly said nothing.
“There were things he did that I have spent years trying to understand.”
“That sounds difficult.”
Her voice was bitter.
“But my father didn’t get six extra years.”
She walked away.
Twenty minutes later, she changed clothes, ignored the manager, and left through the employee entrance.
Gerardo did not follow.
That surprised her.
She walked four blocks before noticing the black sedan.
It remained half a block behind her.
She stopped.
The sedan stopped.
Molly crossed the street.
The sedan remained where it was.
Gerardo’s protection.
She almost laughed.
Then another vehicle appeared.
A gray SUV.
It passed the black sedan.
Slowed.
And stopped beside Molly.
The rear door opened.
A man stepped out.
“Miss Warner?”
Molly ran.
She heard footsteps behind her.
Someone shouted.
She reached the intersection just as a hand caught the back of her coat.
Molly twisted violently.
A second hand covered her mouth.
Then tires screamed.
The black sedan jumped the curb.
Two of Gerardo’s men exploded from the doors.
Everything happened at once.
The man holding Molly shoved her away and reached inside his jacket.
A gunshot cracked through the street.
Glass shattered.
Pedestrians screamed.
Molly hit the pavement.
Then somebody lifted her.
Gerardo.
She did not know where he had come from.
One moment she was on the ground.
The next she was against his chest while his men surrounded them.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Molly.”
“I said no!”
He grabbed her face, checking.
His hands were surprisingly warm.
Their eyes met.
Something changed.
For one dangerous second, neither of them remembered the men with guns.
Then Molly pushed him away.
“You followed me.”
“Yes.”
“I told you I didn’t need protection.”
“And twenty minutes later somebody tried to put you in an SUV.”
She looked toward the gray vehicle.
It had disappeared.
Gerardo’s expression was murderous.
Not toward her.
Toward whoever had touched her.
Molly hated how safe that made her feel.
“Who were they?”
“I intend to find out.”
“I’m going home.”
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed.
He pointed toward the bullet hole in his sedan.
“You can hate me from somewhere with reinforced windows.”
“I am not going anywhere with you.”
Gerardo looked at her for a long moment.
Then he did something nobody around him expected.
He took off his coat.
He placed it around her shoulders.
And instead of ordering her into the car, he said quietly:
“Then tell me where you will feel safe, and I will take you there.”
Molly looked at the feared man everyone else obeyed.
May you like
For the first time, he was giving her a choice.
And for reasons she did not yet understand, that frightened her more than his threats ever had.
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