Chapter 2 - The Empty Throne
The sub-level garage of the Meridian Grand smelled of burning oil and stagnant sewer water.
Water pipes had burst during the blast, sending a greasy, ankle-deep flood across the concrete floor where twenty-million-dollar vehicles sat abandoned with their headlights blindingly locked on the concrete walls. Car alarms wailed in a discordant, maddening symphony that echoed through the subterranean labyrinth.
Ethan Callahan’s custom-armored black Maybach was parked in slot twelve, directly beneath the private elevator shaft.
It was empty.
Victoria walked slowly through the shallow water, her torn gown trailing behind her like a dark tide. She stopped beside the driver’s side door. The window was rolled down an inch. Inside, resting on the leather center console, was Sienna Voss’s discarded Yves Saint Laurent clutch bag, spilling a gold compact and a tube of crimson lipstick onto the seat.
They hadn't waited for the police. They hadn't waited for the Alliance guards. Ethan had cleared the security gate using his master remote before the smoke had even cleared the fourteenth floor.
A sharp click of a safety disengaging echoed behind her.
“Don’t move, Mrs. Callahan.”
Victoria didn’t turn around. She recognized the raspy, broken-nose cadence of Paulie “The Roach” Sica, Ethan’s primary enforcer and shadow for the past fifteen years.
“Paulie,” Victoria said, her voice devoid of fear. “You’re holding your pistol too high. If I spun around and hit your forearm right now, you’d shoot out your own knee.”
A low grunt of amusement grunted from the darkness behind a concrete pillar. The click of the safety remained, but the barrel shifted downward by an inch.
Stepping out from the shadows, Paulie looked like a man who had survived a war he never wanted to fight. His expensive silk suit was covered in gray dust, and a thin line of dried blood ran from his hairline into his right ear.
“The boss said to secure the perimeter,” Paulie muttered, his eyes darting nervously toward the emergency exit ramps. “He didn't say nothing about you being down here.”
“My husband is a coward, Paulie,” Victoria said, turning slowly to face him. Her dark eyes were terrifyingly calm. “He ran out of a burning room with his mistress, leaving nine Alliance dons and their families trapped under three tons of marble.”
“It wasn't a random hit,” Paulie blurted out, regret flashing across his scarred face the moment the words left his mouth.
Victoria stopped. The damp air of the garage seemed to drop ten degrees. “Explain.”
Paulie looked away, kicking a piece of shattered glass into the water. “The charge wasn't planted in the basement, Mrs. C. It was wired directly into the master electrical panel behind the north dais—the exact spot where Ethan stood when he made his little speech about you.”
A chill ran down Victoria’s spine, sharper than the winter wind howling through the broken garage doors.
“Someone inside the Alliance wanted the leadership wiped out,” Victoria whispered, connecting the pieces with a terrifying clarity. “And Ethan knew.”
“He didn't know the exact minute,” Paulie corrected quickly, his loyalty to Ethan warring with a sudden, profound realization of betrayal. “But... he knew something was coming. Why else do you think he moved his personal holdings out of the New York banks last Tuesday? Why do you think he brought Sienna to the gala instead of keeping her tucked away in the Hamptons?”
He had planned to humiliate her, dissolve the marriage, and inherit the vacuum left by the Alliance—all in one stroke, assuming the bomb would only take out his rivals while leaving him untouched. Only the blast had gone off thirty seconds too early, catching the north dais in the initial shockwave and forcing him to run empty-handed.
Victoria reached out, her fingers resting lightly on the cold, dented hood of the Maybach.
“Where did he take her, Paulie?” she asked.
“The safehouse on Montauk,” Paulie muttered, shaking his head. “He’s meeting with the Russian syndicate representatives tonight. He thinks he can carve up the docks before the other families even pull their dead out of the rubble.”
Victoria looked down at her ruined dress, then up at the dark, dripping ceiling of the parking garage. The woman who had entered the Meridian Grand tonight had died when the glass shattered.
“Open the trunk, Paulie,” she said.
The enforcer blinked. “What?”
“Ethan left his spare portfolio in the back. The one with the international bearer bonds and the master ledger of the shipping routes.” Victoria stepped closer, her voice dropping into a register that commanded obedience the way thunder commands the sky. “You’ve served a man who values power over loyalty for fifteen years, Paulie. How did that work out for you tonight? Did he look back to see if you were behind him when he ran?”
Paulie stared at her. The silence stretched between them, heavy with the weight of years of abused servitude.
May you like
Slowly, without a word, Paulie reached into his pocket, pulled out his master key fob, and pressed the trunk release.
The heavy armored lid popped open with a pneumatic hiss. Inside, neatly organized in a waterproof leather case, lay the keys to the kingdom Ethan Callahan thought he had already stolen.
Related Stories
