Chapter 2 - The Man in the Frayed Jacket
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From the circular glass porthole of the kitchen door, Richie Grasso’s beady eyes stayed glued to booth six, waiting with sadistic satisfaction to watch the arrogant drifter saw into a piece of rotting, bacteria-ridden beef.
Julian Vane didn't look toward the kitchen door.
Keeping his broad shoulders slumped in the posture of a weary transient, he used his left thumb to unfold the linen cocktail napkin against his thigh beneath the overhang of the white tablecloth.
He read the jagged blue ink once.
Not a single muscle in his bearded jaw twitched, yet the arctic blue of his eyes darkened by ten shades into the color of a winter storm over the Atlantic.
What nobody inside Bellini’s Chophouse knew—including Richie Grasso—was that seventy-two-year-old Don Lorenzo Bellini hadn't handed this historic restaurant over to his nephew Richie out of affection after his stroke. Bellini’s Chophouse was the flagship front property of the West Side commercial corridor, a territory that had just been absorbed forty-eight hours ago by the most powerful, ruthless syndicate head on the Eastern Seaboard: thirty-four-year-old Julian Vane.
And Julian had a lifelong rule his late grandfather had taught him in Palermo: before you put your name on a new territory’s books, you put on old boots, walk into its flagship properties in the rain without your bodyguards, and see how the captains treat a man they think has nothing to offer them.
For the past three hours, Julian had walked three docks and two clubs in Hell’s Kitchen. He had expected petty skimming. He hadn't expected a manager who tried to poison a customer for two hundred dollars while extorting a twenty-eight-year-old waitress with her dying father’s chemotherapy.
Julian picked up his heavy silver steak knife and fork.
Making sure his movements were clearly visible to Richie watching from the kitchen window, Julian sliced a thick corner off the truffle-butter-drenched ribeye, speared it on his fork, and raised it toward his mouth.
Across the room by the drink station, Clara stopped wiping a glass, holding her breath in sheer panic as the fork neared his lips—praying he had read the napkin!
With a practiced sleight of hand that not even a casino pit boss could have spotted from ten feet away, Julian paused to cough into his left fist holding a second paper napkin, slipped the piece of poisoned meat smoothly into the paper towel, and chewed an empty bite of air while nodding appreciatively toward the kitchen door.
Richie’s ugly smirk widened through the glass porthole before he finally turned away from the window and headed down the back stairs toward his basement office to count the night’s cash skim.
Across the room, Clara let out a shaky breath that nearly buckled her knees.
Julian sliced two more pieces of the steak—dropping them cleanly into the waterproof zip-lined pocket of his military field jacket wrapped inside the linen napkin as forensic evidence—pushed his mashed potatoes around the plate to make it look half-eaten, and raised two fingers gently as Clara walked past with a water pitcher.
"Everything to your liking, sir?" Clara asked loud enough for the bartender to hear, while her eyes dropped anxiously to his plate.
"The seasoning is unforgettable," Julian murmured, his deep baritone vibrating low enough that only she could catch the words. "Who is the man watching from the kitchen door?"
"Richie Grasso," Clara whispered, refilling his water goblet to cover the conversation. "Please, just leave the plate as it is and walk out while he’s downstairs in the office. You already paid the two hundred—you don't need a receipt."
"And what happens to you at eleven o’clock tonight when they clear the tables and Richie realizes you’re the only person who could have kept me from finishing it?" Julian asked quietly.
"You cut three pieces off—he’ll think you ate them and got full," Clara said quickly. "I’ll dump the rest down the garbage disposal myself when I bus the table."
Julian looked up at her. Beneath the harsh overhead chandelier, he took in the frayed hem of her white cuffs, the dark circles of twenty-hour days beneath her warm hazel eyes, and the way her hands still trembled slightly even after risking her entire livelihood to save a stranger in muddy boots.
"Your note said your father is in treatment," Julian said softly. "Where?"
"Sloan Kettering. Look, please—Richie only stays in the basement for ten minutes to log the safe."
Julian reached into the inside pocket of his torn field jacket. He didn't pull out street cash this time. He drew out a heavy, matte-black metal business card with no company name, no title, and no address—only a ten-digit private Manhattan number engraved in silver leaf—and slid it beneath the edge of her water saucer alongside a third crisp hundred-dollar bill.
"I have a friend on the board at Sloan Kettering," Julian said, rising to his full six-foot-three height beside the booth. "And if Richie Grasso says one word to you before closing time, call that number. Doesn't matter what hour it is."
Clara stared at the heavy black metal card. Why would a man in mud-caked boots carry a solid titanium contact card?
Before she could ask, Julian picked up his wet beanie from the bench, held her gaze for one long, charged heartbeat, and walked out the front door into the pouring rain.
Ten feet down Tenth Avenue, parked around the dark corner of 46th Street with its hazard lights off, sat an armored matte-black Maybach.
As Julian approached, the rear door clicked open from the inside, and his six-foot-four head of security, Dante, stepped out into the rain with an umbrella, looking at the paper-wrapped chunks of meat Julian handed him in a sterile plastic bag.
"How was old man Bellini’s steakhouse, Boss?" Dante asked.
May you like
Julian stripped off the wet military jacket and tossed it into the trunk, revealing a bespoke black cashmere sweater and gunmetal shoulder holster underneath.
"Send that meat to Dr. Rossini’s lab for a bacterial culture tonight," Julian ordered, his arctic-blue eyes cold as a glacier. "Pull every financial ledger Richie Grasso has touched in the last seven months. And keep two men in an unmarked car across the street from that front door until the waitress in the black apron walks out at closing. I have a feeling Richie isn't done for the night."
