Chapter 3 - The Apartment on 138th Street
The rain hit Manhattan hard at 2:00 AM, turning the streets of Harlem into black, reflective mirrors reflecting the yellow neon of corner delis and twenty-four-hour laundromats.
My Maybach sat idling across the street from a five-story brick tenement building on 138th Street. The fire escapes were rusted, the front door had a broken glass panel taped over with thick brown plastic, and the streetlights flickered with a low, buzzing hum.
I sat in the back seat, staring up at the third-floor window where a faint yellow light was visible through thin white curtains.
"We ran the background check you requested, Mr. Moretti," Franco said from the front seat, turning around to hand me a thick manila folder. "Her name is Isabella Bennett. Age twenty-eight. Born in Naples, came to the United States on a domestic worker visa nine years ago."
I opened the folder under the dim interior reading lamp.
Isabella Bennett.
There was a mugshot from six years ago—a dark, grainy photo taken at a police station in Queens. Charge: Unlawful entry and domestic trespass. Dismissed.
"What was the arrest in Queens?" I asked.
"Six years ago, three months after she had the child," Franco explained, his voice low. "She was working as a live-in housekeeper for Arthur Vance—Senator Vance's younger brother."
My fingers tightened on the edge of the folder so hard the paper tore. "Arthur Vance?"
"Yes, sir," Franco continued. "She was fired after eight months without pay. When she tried to go back to the house to retrieve her personal belongings and her child's medical records, Arthur Vance had her arrested for trespassing. She spent forty-eight hours in the precinct basement before a public defender got the charges dropped."
I stared at the mugshot. She looked half-starved in the photo—her collarbones prominent, her eyes hollow, but her jaw set in that same stubborn, unyielding angle I had seen in Central Park today.
"Where is Arthur Vance now?" I asked.
"He runs the private trust that manages the Vance family's real estate holdings in Manhattan," Franco said. "Including this tenement building. Isabella pays eight hundred dollars a month for a three-room apartment on the third floor. The lease is held directly under one of Arthur Vance's shell companies."
The puzzle was building itself, piece by dark piece.
Eight years ago, an unknown woman saves my life in an alley after a hit staged by the Romano family—a hit that was backed by insider intelligence from Washington.
Seven years ago, that same woman is working as a maid in the house of Arthur Vance.
Six years ago, she has a child with dark hair and gray eyes—a child who tells me her father never keeps his promises, while holding a scholarship letter to an elite private school.
"Is Arthur Vance the father?" I asked, the words feeling sour in my throat.
Franco hesitated, pulling a second sheet of paper from his coat pocket. "We checked the birth certificate registered at Metropolitan Hospital six years ago. The father's name is left blank. But... three days after the child was born, a wire transfer of fifty thousand dollars was made from Arthur Vance's personal account to the hospital's charity care wing."
I looked up at the flickering yellow light on the third floor.
"Wait here," I said, reaching for the door handle.
"Boss," Franco warned, his hand moving toward his shoulder holster. "This block is controlled by the Uptown Syndicate. It's not safe for you to walk into that building alone."
"The Uptown Syndicate pays twelve percent of their street tax to my family every Tuesday morning," I said, stepping out into the pouring rain. "If anyone on this street touches my shadow, you can burn the block down. Otherwise, keep the engine running."
The entrance hallway of the tenement building smelled of boiled cabbage, damp concrete, and bleach.
I walked up the creaking wooden stairs, my leather boots silent against the worn step treads. The numbers on the doors were painted in fading white enamel: 3A, 3B, 3C.
I stopped outside door 3C.
Through the thin wood, I could hear a quiet voice reading—a low, rhythmic cadence that rose and fell softly over the sound of rain beating against the fire escape outside.
"And so the little wooden boat sailed across the deep blue sea, until it found the island where the stars slept during the day..."
I didn't knock. I waited.
Five minutes passed. The reading stopped. A soft light flickered under the crack of the door, followed by the soft padding of socks across a linoleum floor.
The bolt clicked. The door opened two inches, held by a brass security chain.
Isabella stood in the dark crack, wearing a gray sweatshirt and pair of faded cotton trousers. Her hair was pulled back in a loose braid, a few dark strands framing her face.
When she saw me standing in the narrow hallway, her hand jumped to her mouth to stifle a gasp.
"You..." she whispered, her eyes wide with shock. "How did you get past the front gate?"
"The front gate has a broken latch, Isabella," I said softly, my shoulder leaning against the door frame. "And you left your kitchen window unlocked onto the fire escape."
She swallowed hard, her eyes darting past my head down the empty hallway. "What are you doing here? It's three o'clock in the morning."
"I came to answer a question," I said.
"What question?"
"Lily's father," I said, taking a step closer to the door crack, my voice dropping into a register that only she could hear. "Is it Arthur Vance?"
Isabella’s face went completely still—not with fear, but with a cold, ancient fury that made her look ten years older in the dim yellow light of the hallway bulb.
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"Don't you ever say that name in front of my daughter," she whispered, her fingers digging into the edge of the door so hard the wood groaned.
"Then open the door, Isabella," I said. "Because tomorrow morning at noon, I am going to destroy the Vance family. And I need to know if I am destroying your child's father, or mine."
