Chapter 4: The Man Who Was Supposed to Have Retired
The safe house was a brownstone in Carroll Gardens, three blocks from a church and two from a bakery that opened at 5 a.m.
Nothing about it suggested anything other than a quiet residential street.
Inside, the ground floor had been converted into something between a command post and a waiting room.
A long table.
Laptops.
A whiteboard with names connected by lines in dry-erase marker.
A coffee maker that looked like it had been running for eighteen hours.
Leo poured two cups without asking.
Mave stood at the whiteboard and read the names.
One was circled in red.
**ROMANO COSTA.**
"Your uncle," she said.
"My father's younger brother," Vincent said.
"He ran the financial side of the organization for twenty-two years.
Every account, every shell company, every offshore structure — he built it."
"Which means he knows every place to hide money inside it."
"And every place to move it without triggering a flag." Vincent set down his cup.
"Except yours."
Mave looked at the lines connecting Romano's name to the others.
One line ran to a box labeled REYES.
Another ran to a box labeled NJ TRUCKING.
A third ran to a name she didn't recognize.
"Who is Callum Doyle?" she asked.
The room went slightly still.
Leo looked at Vincent.
Vincent looked at the whiteboard.
"Doyle is an accountant," Vincent said.
"Freelance.
He's done work for three of the five families at different points.
He doesn't take sides.
He takes fees."
"And Romano hired him."
"Romano hired him eight months ago.
Two weeks after the retirement announcement."
Mave turned from the board.
"So Romano retires publicly, hires an outside accountant privately, and starts moving money through a structure he built himself — one he knows your internal people won't question because it has his fingerprints on it from the beginning."
"Yes."
"That's not impulsive," she said.
"That's been planned for a long time."
"We think since before my father's diagnosis."
The word landed in the room like something dropped on stone.
Mave didn't ask the next question out loud.
She didn't need to.
The line on the whiteboard said it clearly enough — a thin dry-erase mark running from Romano's name up and to the left, connecting to a box that simply read: **D.
COSTA.**
Daniel Costa.
Vincent's father.
"You think he knew your father was sick before the family did," Mave said.
"I think he made sure of it," Vincent said.
Leo put his cup down.
"We don't have proof of that part," Leo said.
It was the first time he had spoken since the car.
"We have the money.
We have Reyes.
We have Doyle.
The rest is—"
"The rest is what I intend to find," Vincent said.
A phone buzzed on the table.
Vincent glanced at the screen and didn't pick it up.
Mave looked at it.
The name on the screen read: **ROMANO.**
"He knows you left the Plaza early," she said.
"He knows more than that." Vincent turned the phone face-down.
"Reyes would have reported back by now."
"So he knows the photograph didn't work."
"He knows I got to you first."
Mave crossed her arms.
"Which means his next move is something other than Reyes."
Vincent picked up the phone.
He didn't answer it.
He looked at the missed call for a long moment, then set it back down.
"He'll call a meeting," Vincent said.
"Family council.
He'll frame it as concern.
He'll say he's heard rumors that someone on the inside has been talking to outside parties.
He'll suggest a loyalty review."
"And point the finger at me," Mave said.
"At you.
And possibly at Leo."
Leo's expression didn't change.
"He'll try to use the organization's own process against you," Mave said.
"Make it look like you're the one with something to hide."
"Yes."
"Then we need to move before he calls that meeting."
Vincent looked at her.
"The Doyle accounts," she said.
"If Doyle is freelance and Romano hired him privately, there's a paper trail outside the Costa financial structure.
Invoices.
Wire transfers.
Something that exists in the normal world, not just inside your books."
"Doyle doesn't leave paper trails."
"Everyone leaves something," Mave said.
"I found $30,000 in a column that was supposed to disappear.
Give me the Doyle records and give me time."
The phone on the table buzzed again.
Romano.
Again.
Vincent looked at Leo.
Leo gave a small nod.
May you like
"You have until morning," Vincent said to Mave.
She was already pulling a laptop toward her.
