Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Nursery
Silas Kane spat a stream of dark tobacco into the slush.
"Elias didn't take her himself," Silas said, stepping closer into the faint light of the carriage house entrance. "He had three North End contract boys snatch her through the service gate. I was tailing them. I intercepted them on Commercial Street before they could cross the bridge."
Serena emerged from the cellar opening, clutching her bandaged shoulder, Marcus trailing closely behind her.
"Silas," Serena said, relief washing over her bruised face. "Where did you put her?"
"The old bait shop on Long Wharf," Silas replied, his eyes softening slightly as he looked at Serena. "The one Tomas and I used to keep the outboard motors in. My cousin’s boy is sitting on her with a twelve-gauge. But Elias knows the truck was diverted. He knows I intercepted the snatch squad because one of them managed to radio out before I cracked his skull."
Roman stepped between Silas and Serena, his presence dominating the narrow alleyway. "Why didn't you bring her directly here?"
"Because your house was surrounded by twenty of Elias’s personal trigger-pullers, you arrogant bastard," Silas snarled, his scarred hand lifting to point a stubby, truncated finger directly at Roman’s nose. "If I had driven that little girl up Chestnut Street, she would have caught a dozen rounds of nine-millimeter before the tires hit the curb! I’ve spent six years hiding in the bilge of container ships to keep that child alive while you sat in your father’s leather chair playing mafia king!"
Roman didn't strike him. He absorbed the words, knowing every jagged syllable was earned.
"Clara is inside," Roman said simply. "Take Marcus’s car. Go to Long Wharf. Get Clara, get Ellie, and drive south. Marcus has a safehouse in Narragansett with four hundred rounds of ammunition and emergency medical supplies."
"No," Clara’s voice rose from the cellar door.
She stepped out into the freezing rain, her nightgown soaked at the hem, her eyes swollen red, but her posture completely transformed. The meek, invisible housekeeper was gone. In her place stood a woman whose husband had been slaughtered and whose child had been terrorized.
"I am not running to Rhode Island," Clara said, her voice cutting through the wind like a straight razor. "Tomas died because he tried to run. Silas has lived like a rat in the sewers because he ran. I want Elias Bellucci dead. And I want to be in the room when he realizes Tomas Marchetti’s daughter is the one who put him in the dirt."
Roman looked at the woman who had served his morning espresso for three years without ever meeting his eyes. A cold, feral respect settled in his chest.
"She has a point," Serena added, stepping up beside Roman, her uninjured shoulder brushing against his arm. "Elias called an emergency council of the Five Families for two o'clock this morning at the St. Anthony Society hall in the North End. He’s going to tell them you were compromised by me, that you authorized the hit on Paulie Vitucci, and that the Valentes are invading the docks. If we aren't there to challenge him, the entire city will turn into a slaughterhouse by sunrise."
Roman looked at his watch.
1:14 AM.
"Silas," Roman said. "Where is the physical proof Tomas left in the vault?"
Silas reached into the pocket of his heavy peacoat. He didn't pull out a ledger.
He pulled out a cracked cassette tape labeled in faded red marker: *Brakes / Lincoln Town Car / Nov 12.*
"Tomas wired a dictaphone under the driver’s console," Silas said, his voice dropping into a register of profound sorrow. "He recorded Elias giving the order. He recorded Elias handing over the cash and explaining how to splice the hydraulic lines so the car wouldn't fail until it reached sixty miles per hour on the bridge descent. Tomas kept the tape because he thought it was life insurance."
Silas handed the cassette to Roman.
The plastic was cold. It felt impossibly light for an object that had carried the weight of fifteen years of war, hundreds of dead men, and the wreckage of two broken families.
"Marcus," Roman said.
"Boss."
"Take Silas and Clara to Long Wharf. Secure Ellie. Bring all three of them to the St. Anthony hall. Do not enter through the front. Take the service alley behind the bakery. Wait for my signal."
Marcus nodded once, his eyes dead and lethal. "And what’s your signal?"
Roman checked the magazine of his Sig Sauer, racked the slide with a crisp, mechanical *clack*, and clicked the safety into place.
May you like
"The sound of the front doors coming off their hinges."
***