Chapter 6: Everything Leo Found
They came out through the building's basement, through a utility corridor that connected to a parking structure on the next block.
Silas brought the car around.
Robert sat in the back between Sienna and the door.
He held the folded piece of paper in his hand, turning it over once, then again, then stopping.
"Where are we going?" Sienna asked.
"Leo left a contact number," Damian said from the front.
"We call it."
"And if he doesn't answer?"
"He'll answer."
Silas dialed from a clean phone, put it on speaker, and held it between the front seats.
It rang twice.
"Yeah." Leo's voice.
Tight.
Alert.
Alive.
Sienna exhaled so hard it almost hurt.
"Leo," she said.
"It's me."
A pause.
When he spoke again his voice had changed completely.
"Sienna." A breath.
"You're with Russo."
"Yes."
"Okay." Another pause.
"Okay, that's — that's actually okay.
That's good." He steadied himself.
"Is Dad with you?"
"I'm here," Robert said.
Leo was quiet for three seconds.
"I have everything," he said.
"The original warehouse acquisition documents.
The altered versions.
The wire transfers from Carrow's shell company to the three contractors who set the fire.
The internal department memo from 2015 authorizing the evidence plant — it has Carrow's authorization code on it." He paused.
"And I have the recordings."
"What recordings?" Damian said.
"Carrow met with Mickey Dolan six times in the past year.
Mickey wasn't just collecting debts.
He was running a collection operation for Carrow — identifying people with financial pressure who could be used or moved.
I have audio of four of those meetings.
Carrow's voice is clear on all of them." Leo's voice was steady now, methodical.
"On the third recording, he talks about the Hayes debt specifically.
He says, and I'm reading this directly: *The girl works at the Obsidian Room.
Mickey picks her up Friday.
We use her to bring the brother in, and then we clean both of them up before anyone asks questions.*"
The car was silent.
*Clean both of them up.*
Sienna felt her father's hand close over hers on the seat.
"Leo," Damian said.
"Where are the originals?"
"Safe deposit box.
A bank in Newark, not New York.
The key is with a friend — someone Carrow has no connection to and no reason to know about." Leo paused.
"I also sent digital copies to three separate encrypted locations.
One of them is with a journalist at the Times who's been working the Caruso fire story for two years.
She doesn't have the package yet.
She has a sealed envelope with instructions to open it if I go dark for more than 72 hours."
"How long has the envelope been with her?" Damian asked.
"Since Tuesday," Leo said.
"So you have about 40 hours before she opens it regardless."
Damian looked at Silas.
Silas nodded once.
"Leo," Damian said.
"I need you to come in.
Not to me — to someone neutral.
Someone with standing to receive this properly."
"I know someone," Robert said quietly.
Everyone looked at him.
"A federal prosecutor.
She was a junior attorney during the original task force investigation.
She always believed the case had been compromised.
She's been waiting for something solid for ten years." He looked at Damian.
"She's clean.
I'd stake my life on it."
"You may be doing exactly that," Damian said.
Robert held his gaze.
"I know."
"Leo," Sienna said.
"Can you get to us tonight?"
"Tell me where," Leo said.
Damian gave an address — a property in Newark, across the bridge, outside Carrow's immediate reach.
"Two hours," Leo said.
The line went quiet.
Sienna stared at the back of the seat in front of her.
*Clean both of them up.*
She had been in that corridor with Mickey's hand around her throat, and somewhere across the city a man with a badge and a commendation on his chest had been waiting for a phone call confirming the delivery.
"Damian," she said.
He turned slightly.
"The four people who d*ed in the warehouse fire," she said.
"Who were they?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"A night watchman," he said.
"A building manager.
Two undocumented workers who were sleeping in the lower level." He paused.
"None of them were supposed to be there that night, according to Carrow's people.
They were considered an acceptable complication."
Sienna looked out the window at the dark water as they crossed the bridge.
An acceptable complication.
She thought about her father sitting alone in that armchair for ten years, drinking to quiet something he couldn't say out loud, carrying the weight of a truth that had cost him everything.
She thought about Leo running.
She thought about Mickey's hand.
"He's going to try to stop this," she said.
"When Carrow realizes his men lost us tonight, he's going to move."
"Yes," Damian said.
"How much time do we have?"
Silas answered from the front.
"He knows we slipped his men at the building.
He'll be making calls right now." A pause.
"I'd say we have until morning before he decides to escalate."
"Then we need Leo here before morning," Sienna said.
"He'll be here," Damian said.
She turned to look at him.
"Why are you doing this?" she said.
"This isn't your problem.
Carrow's already contained — he can't touch your family anymore without exposing himself.
You could walk away from this tonight and be completely safe."
Damian looked at her for a long moment.
"Four people d*ed in that fire," he said.
"And for ten years, my family's name was on the document that said we ordered it." He looked back at the road.
"I'm not walking away from that."
May you like
The car moved through the dark.
Somewhere behind them, Vincent Carrow was picking up a phone.
