Chapter 10 - The City of Shadows
The final confrontation didn't take place in a dark alley or a smoke-filled social club. It took place at 10:00 a.m. on a bright, crisp Thursday morning in the penthouse office of the Marcone Import Corporation, overlooking the bustling grey waters of the Hudson River.
Carmine Marcone sat behind his massive glass desk, surrounded by six remaining bodyguards whose suits were a little too tight and whose eyes were a little too wide. They had spent the last twenty-four hours hearing reports from the valley—reports of Victor’s death, reports of a fortress in the pines, and reports of an unknown girl who carried a heavy automatic weapon with the steady focus of a veteran enforcer.
The double oak doors of the office didn't explode inward. They were opened smoothly from the outside by Leo’s attorney, a sharp-faced man named Harrison who carried a single leather briefcase.
Behind him stepped Leo Vance. He wore a fresh charcoal suit, his dark hair slicked back perfectly, his midnight blue overcoat over his arm. He looked like a man arriving for a routine board meeting, entirely unmarked by the violence of the past month.
And beside him walked Aubrey.
She wore a tailored navy blue wool dress, her blonde hair pinned back neatly, her pale face clear and striking beneath the soft office lights. She didn't look like a girl who had spent five years wiping grease off Formica tables; she looked like a woman who owned the floor she walked on. In her right hand, held discreetly against the folds of her dress, was the compact black pistol Leo had given her in the diner.
"Leo," Carmine said, his voice a gravelly rumble as he stood up from his chair. He was an older man, his stomach heavy, his gold rings clicking against the glass desk. "You're a hard man to find. I thought you were retired."
"I was retired, Carmine," Leo said, stepping toward the center of the room. The six bodyguards moved their hands toward their jackets, but Leo didn't flinch. He looked at Carmine with a deep, pitying contempt. "Until you decided to turn my weekly drive into a shootout. You always were a poor accountant, Carmine. You counted my years, but you forgot to count my friends."
"Friends?" Carmine laughed sneeringly, looking at Aubrey. "This is your new army, Leo? A little girl from a roadside diner? Victor told me about her before he died. He said she threw a pot of coffee like a common kitchen maid."
Aubrey stepped forward, her heels clicking sharply against the marble floor border. She didn't look at the bodyguards; she looked straight into Carmine’s watery, old-man eyes.
"The coffee was a dollar fifty, Mr. Marcone," she said, her voice clear, carrying an absolute, unshakeable authority that made two of the bodyguards look down at their shoes. "But the price for trying to settle a ledger in my diner is much higher. We’re here to collect the balance."
Attorney Harrison stepped up to the desk, opening his briefcase with a crisp, professional click. He pulled out a single sheet of parchment paper, sliding it across the glass toward Carmine.
"This is a corporate restructuring agreement," Harrison explained smoothly. "As of 9:00 this morning, fifty-one percent of the voting shares in Marcone Import, along with the deeds to the three warehouses in Brooklyn and the social club on 4th Street, have been transferred to a holding company called Clara Vance Holdings."
Carmine’s face turned into the color of wet cement. "What? That’s impossible. Those shares are held in dummy accounts in Panama."
"They were held in Panama," Leo said, taking a slow step toward the desk, leaning his hands flat on the glass just as he had done on the Formica booth a month ago. "Until my niece found the passwords in Victor’s phone. It turns out Victor was keeping a separate set of books, Carmine. He was planning to take your chair the moment I was out of the way. She spent the last three days reallocating your assets while you were busy hunting for ghosts in the woods."
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Carmine looked at his six bodyguards, his fingers trembling as he looked for a weapon, a sign, a single man willing to die for a boss whose money had just vanished. But the men stood perfectly still. They were professionals; they knew when a company had changed management.
"Get out of my chair, Carmine," Leo said softly. "The new owner needs to check the register."
