Chapter 6: What Loyalty Costs
Adrian called Caruso immediately.
"They're moving.
Lock down the Riverside office — nobody leaves."
"Already on it.
But Boss — Vincent didn't come in.
He was never here."
"I know.
Find him.
Check the private airfield in Westchester first."
He was already walking toward the door when his phone rang again.
This time it was a number he recognized — one of his captains, a man named Reyes who ran the Brooklyn side of the operation and had worked for Adrian's father before Adrian.
"I just got a call from Vincent," Reyes said.
His voice was flat and careful, the voice of a man choosing every word.
"He told me you've gone sideways.
That you're making accusations against loyal men.
That the organization needs to consider its options."
"And what did you tell him?"
"I told him I'd call you before I did anything else."
Adrian stopped walking.
"Reyes."
"I've known Vincent Carra for twenty years," Reyes said.
"I also know that when a man calls me to talk about *options*, he's already decided what he wants those options to be.
So I'm asking you directly.
What's happening?"
"Lucas Reed has been feeding our movements to Vincent for at least nine weeks.
The Hargrove loss, the port delay, the Castellano negotiation — all of it.
Vincent has been selling our operations to outside interests.
I have the call logs."
Silence on the line.
"Twenty years," Reyes said quietly.
"I know."
"He sat at your father's table."
"I know that too."
Another silence.
Then: "What do you need from me?"
"Stay where you are.
Don't take calls from anyone in Vincent's circle.
I'll be in touch within the hour."
He ended the call and thought about what Vincent was doing right now.
Running, most likely — but Vincent was sixty-one years old and had not survived this long by running blindly.
He would have a plan.
He would have leverage he hadn't used yet.
Adrian's phone buzzed.
A message from Caruso: *Westchester airfield — Vincent's pilot filed a flight plan forty minutes ago.
Destination: Miami.*
He wasn't running.
He was already gone.
Adrian stared at the message.
Then he thought about Emma Carter, sitting in the last booth at Rose's Diner with a red crayon, pointing at a window and saying: *He sits there for a few minutes, then leaves.*
A six-year-old child had seen what thirty men had missed.
He typed one message back to Caruso: *Let him land.*
Caruso replied in seconds: *You sure?*
Adrian typed: *Miami has people who owe me.
Let him feel safe for twelve hours.
Then we move.*
He put the phone in his pocket and sat down.
He needed to think about Lucas.
Lucas, who was still sitting in the car somewhere — or was he?
Adrian had told him to take the car back to the garage.
He had assumed Lucas would comply.
That assumption now felt like the most expensive one he had made all month.
He called the garage.
"Is the car back?"
"No, sir.
Haven't seen it."
Adrian closed his eyes.
Lucas Reed was not going to the garage.
Lucas Reed was going somewhere Vincent had told him to go — a backup location, a safe house, a way out of the city that didn't involve an airfield or a name on a manifest.
He had underestimated Lucas.
That wouldn't happen again.
"Pull every camera on the route from the waterfront to the tunnel," he told Caruso.
"Find that car."
He stood up, buttoned his coat, and walked to the window of the safe room.
The harbor was dark now.
The container ship was gone.
He thought about Sophia Carter's face in the rain — *no calculation in them* — and about a little girl who had run into a storm to return something that wasn't hers.
He had spent twenty years surrounded by men who took everything they could reach.
He had not understood, until this week, how rare the other kind was.
His phone buzzed.
Caruso again.
May you like
*Found the car.
It's parked outside Rose's Diner.*
