Chapter 8: The Accounting
Romano signed for four hours.
Farrell sat beside him.
Brennan sat across from him.
Mave cross-referenced every signature against the files on her laptop and flagged two discrepancies that Romano corrected without argument.
Vincent was not in the room for most of it.
He stood in the outer office, at Mave's desk, with a cup of coffee that had gone cold.
He looked out the window at the street below.
The city was awake now.
Delivery trucks.
A woman walking a dog.
A man in a hard hat eating a sandwich on a stoop.
Leo came and stood beside him.
"Reyes?" Vincent said.
"Gone," Leo said.
"He had a bag packed.
He was at the airport by 6 a.m."
"Let him go."
Leo looked at him.
"You sure?"
"Reyes was a tool.
Romano is the problem." Vincent drank the cold coffee.
"Reyes running tells us Romano's network is already fracturing.
That's useful."
"And Doyle?"
"Brennan will handle Doyle.
There'll be a formal separation.
Doyle loses the Costa work permanently and signs a confidentiality agreement with enough teeth that he'll never touch a family-connected account again."
Leo nodded slowly.
"And Romano?"
Vincent looked at the street.
"He resigns.
Formally.
In writing.
With a full accounting attached." He set the cup down.
"He keeps his personal assets.
He walks away from every organizational role, every account, every decision.
He becomes a private citizen."
"That's it?"
"The $2.3 million goes back into the organization.
Every cent.
Romano funds it from his personal holdings if the accounts are short." A pause.
"And if he ever surfaces in any capacity connected to this family's business again, the bank records go to every relevant authority simultaneously."
Leo was quiet for a moment.
"He built a lot of this."
"I know."
"Some of the older people won't like it."
"Some of the older people will understand it better than anyone," Vincent said.
"Romano moved against the head of the family.
If my father were alive, the outcome would be very different."
Leo didn't argue with that.
The door to the inner office opened.
Brennan came out, carrying the folder, now thick with signed pages.
"It's done," Brennan said.
"Full accounting.
Resignation letter.
Asset repatriation schedule." He handed the folder to Vincent.
"Romano wants five minutes with you.
Alone."
Vincent looked at the folder.
Then at the closed door.
"Tell him no," Vincent said.
Brennan nodded once and went back inside.
Mave came out a minute later.
She sat in her chair.
She looked at her desk — the tablet, the pens, the coffee mug she had left there the morning before, which felt like it belonged to a different week.
"It's over?" she said.
"The signing is over," Vincent said.
"The rest takes time."
"The Belize account.
The New Jersey structure."
"Brennan will unwind them.
Properly.
It'll take months."
Mave nodded.
She picked up the coffee mug.
It was empty.
"I need to go home," she said.
"I know."
"I haven't slept."
"I know."
She stood.
She picked up her bag.
She looked at him.
"You used me as bait," she said.
"At the Plaza."
"Yes."
"I want that acknowledged."
"I'm acknowledging it."
"I want it to not happen again."
"It won't."
She looked at him for a moment.
The morning light was coming through the window now, pale and flat, and it made the office look like what it was — a room where serious things happened and were then carefully put away.
"One more thing," she said.
"Yes."
"The $30,000 I flagged.
The original discrepancy." She paused.
"There's a second one.
Smaller.
Different structure.
I found it at 4 a.m.
and I didn't say anything because I needed to understand what it was first."
Vincent looked at her.
"It's not Romano," she said.
"The signature pattern is different.
The routing is different.
Someone else has been moving money through this organization."
The morning light sat in the room between them.
"Someone else," Vincent said.
"Yes."
He picked up his phone.
"Then you haven't slept yet," he said.
Mave set her bag back down.
May you like
"No," she said.
"I suppose I haven't."
