Chapter 7: The Most Dangerous Breakfast in New York
Caruso walked into the estate's main reception room like a man arriving for a scheduled meeting.
He was sixty-one, silver-haired, with the careful posture of someone who had spent decades making sure he never looked like what he was.
He wore a dark coat and carried nothing in his hands.
Two of his men waited outside.
Lorenzo was already seated when Caruso entered.
Coffee on the table.
Two cups.
Caruso looked at the second cup.
Then at Lorenzo.
"You were expecting me."
"Sit down, Vincent."
Caruso sat.
He poured his own coffee with a steady hand.
"You look better than I expected, given everything."
"You mean given my wife."
Caruso's expression didn't change.
"I heard something this morning that troubled me.
A rumor.
I wanted to come to you directly."
"That's considerate."
"We've done business for nine years.
I think we owe each other directness."
"I agree." Lorenzo set down his cup.
"So let me be direct.
I know about the road crew.
I know about the payment.
I know about Dominic." He paused.
"And I know about the forty-minute meeting you had with my wife eight weeks before you tried to kjll her."
Caruso's hand stopped moving.
"That's a serious accusation."
"It's a documented one."
"Documentation can be fabricated."
"Garrett's statement can't.
He's already spoken to a federal contact this morning." Lorenzo watched Caruso's face.
"Along with Dominic."
Something moved behind Caruso's eyes.
Fast and cold.
"Dominic would never—"
"Dominic made his choice an hour ago." Lorenzo leaned forward slightly.
"You called him this morning to find out what he knew.
He didn't answer your second call, did he."
Caruso set the coffee cup down.
"You have nothing that connects me personally to any of this," he said.
His voice had changed.
The social warmth was g0ne.
"Dominic acted on his own financial interests.
Whatever arrangement he had, it wasn't sanctioned by me."
"That's going to be a difficult argument when the wire transfers show the originating account belongs to a company that you personally signed the articles for."
Caruso was quiet.
"I want the Aldren records," he said.
Flat.
No pretense now.
"I know you do."
"Give them to me and this ends.
Dominic goes away quietly.
The federal interest disappears.
You keep everything you have." He held Lorenzo's gaze.
"And your wife — wherever she is — stays safe."
There it was.
The threat dressed as an offer.
"If anything happens to Isabella," Lorenzo said, "every document I have goes to six separate recipients simultaneously.
Federal.
Journalist.
And three of your own captains who I happen to know are unhappy with your current leadership." He paused.
"I prepared that arrangement this morning."
Caruso's jaw tightened.
"You'd burn yourself to burn me."
"I'd burn whatever I needed to." Lorenzo stood.
"But I don't think it will come to that."
The door to the reception room opened.
A man in a gray suit stepped in.
Forties.
Quiet shoes.
The specific kind of unremarkable that took effort to achieve.
He held up a credentials wallet.
"Mr.
Caruso.
I'm Agent Hargrove.
I'd like you to come with me."
Two more agents appeared in the doorway behind him.
Caruso looked at Lorenzo.
His face did something complicated — rage and calculation and the particular humiliation of a man who had spent forty years being the one who walked into rooms and changed them, now discovering that this room had been changed before he arrived.
"You'll regret this," he said.
"Sit down, Mr.
Caruso," Hargrove said pleasantly.
Caruso didn't move for a moment.
Then he sat.
May you like
His hands went flat on the table.
Nobody in the room looked away from him.
