Chapter 5: The Man Who Runs the Port
Reyes was not the kind of man who appeared in photographs.
Vincent had known his name for years the way you know the name of a current — something that moves beneath the surface, shapes everything above it, and remains invisible until it pulls you under.
Ernesto Reyes had been running freight through the South Side port corridor since before Vincent's father died.
He paid on time, caused no visible trouble, and kept his operation quiet enough that the Corvino family had treated him as a fixture rather than a threat.
That had been a mistake.
"How long have you known it was Reyes?" Vincent asked.
Marco was still in the chair.
He hadn't moved since the realization landed.
"I confirmed it four months ago," he said.
"Before that, I suspected."
"Four months."
"Yes."
"And you said nothing."
"I was building a case.
I needed—"
"You needed to tell me." Vincent's voice didn't rise.
It dropped.
"Four months ago, Marco.
Four months of me sitting in this room signing papers and taking meetings and not knowing that the man who crippled me was still operating thirty minutes from this house."
"If I'd told you, you would have moved on him immediately."
"Yes."
"From a wheelchair.
Six months out of surgery.
With half your organization still figuring out whether to stay loyal or start looking for a new arrangement." Marco's voice was tight.
"You would have gotten yourself kjlled.
And this time it would have been on purpose."
The room held that for a moment.
Tessa refilled the water glass on the nightstand without being asked.
Set it down quietly.
"What's the case you were building?" Vincent said.
"Reyes has been skimming the freight corridor for three years.
Not just the port — the warehouse network, the trucking routes, the union contracts.
He's been diverting revenue through a shell company registered in Delaware.
I have the account numbers.
I have two years of transfer records."
"That's not a crjminal case.
That's leverage."
"It's both.
Depending on who you hand it to."
Vincent looked at him.
"You were going to use it yourself."
Marco didn't answer.
"You were going to go to Reyes directly.
Offer him a choice.
Sign over the freight corridor or the records go to the federal task force that's been looking at South Side operations for the past two years." Vincent's jaw tightened.
"Without telling me."
"I was handling it."
"You were handling my empire without my knowledge while I sat in this room thinking my biggest problem was whether Lauren still wanted to marry me."
The words came out harder than he intended.
He felt Tessa go still across the room.
Marco looked at the floor.
"I thought I was protecting you."
"You thought I was finished."
The silence that followed was the most honest thing Marco had said all morning.
Vincent picked up his phone.
"Call Dominic.
Tell him to come upstairs.
Bring the harbor papers."
"Vince—"
"Now, Marco."
Marco pulled out his phone.
Made the call.
Spoke three sentences.
Hung up.
"He'll be up in ten minutes," he said.
"Good." Vincent looked at the device on the nightstand.
"Is there a second device in this room?"
Marco hesitated.
One second too long.
"Check the lamp on the left side of the vanity," he said quietly.
Tessa walked to it without being asked.
Lifted the base.
A second device, identical to the first, was taped to the underside.
She set it on the table beside the first one.
Vincent looked at both of them.
"How many people have been listening?"
"The devices transmit to a receiver.
Encrypted.
Only one person has the key."
"Reyes."
"I don't know how he got it.
The devices were mine.
I installed them.
The encryption was mine." Marco's voice had something new in it now.
Something that sounded like the first honest fear Vincent had heard from him in years.
"Someone broke my encryption.
Someone has been listening to everything I've been feeding you — and everything you've been saying back."
Tessa spoke from the vanity.
"So when you called Dominic just now—"
"He heard it," Marco said.
The three of them looked at the door.
Dominic Caruso had worked alongside Marco for eleven years.
He controlled the harbor contracts, the union relationships, and the legal front companies that kept the Corvino operation invisible to anyone who wasn't looking carefully.
He was also, Vincent now realized, the man whose life Lauren had tried to save.
The man whose life had cost Vincent his legs.
The knock at the door came exactly nine minutes later.
"Come in," Vincent said.
Dominic entered carrying a leather folder.
He was fifty-one, silver-haired, dressed in a dark suit that cost more than Tessa made in a month.
He glanced at Marco.
Then at the two devices on the table.
His expression didn't change.
That was the tell.
A man who walks into a room and sees two listening devices on a table reacts.
He pauses.
He asks.
He looks confused or alarmed or curious.
Dominic Caruso looked at those devices the way a man looks at something he already knew was there.
"Close the door," Vincent said.
Dominic closed it.
"Sit down."
He sat in the second chair, the one Marco had moved from the corner.
He set the leather folder on his knee.
"You wanted the harbor papers," he said.
"I did," Vincent said.
"But first I want to know why you've been listening to everything that happens in this room for the past six months."
Dominic's hand rested on the leather folder.
Still.
May you like
Perfectly still.
And in that stillness, Vincent saw everything Marco had missed.
