TAKE MY ARM MAFIA BOSS

Vincent’s headquarters had a room nobody used anymore.

It sat behind his private office, hidden by a paneled wall and protected by a mechanical lock installed before biometric scanners existed.

Anthony Costa’s room.

Vincent had not opened it in thirteen years.

At five in the morning, he stood before the concealed door with Mave beside him and a locksmith kneeling on the floor.

Leo paced behind them.

Felix watched the hallway.

Nobody had slept.

Nobody trusted anybody enough to try.

The locksmith removed a final plate.

“Try it.”

Vincent inserted an old brass key.

The lock turned.

Dust rolled into the office when the door opened.

Inside stood a desk, a banker’s lamp, steel cabinets, and shelves filled with paper ledgers.

No computer.

No network connection.

Nothing Donovan could erase from across the city.

Mave stepped inside first.

Vincent followed.

On the desk sat a framed photograph of a dark-haired woman holding a boy of about ten.

Elena and Vincent.

Mave glanced at him.

He did not touch the photograph.

“Start with Northstar,” he said.

They searched for an hour.

Tax records.

Property deeds.

Handwritten payment books.

Then Mave found a locked metal box beneath the desk.

A label had been taped across it.

D.S.

Vincent used bolt cutters.

Inside was a cassette recorder.

Mave stared.

“You’re kidding.”

“My father distrusted anything invented after 1985.”

Leo found batteries in a drawer.

The recorder clicked.

Static filled the room.

Then Daniel Sullivan spoke.

“If Vincent is hearing this, Anthony is dead or I am.”

Mave sat down hard.

Vincent stood motionless.

“I don’t know which possibility frightens me more,” Daniel continued. “Anthony made mistakes. So did I. But William Donovan is not one of those mistakes. He is a choice we failed to stop soon enough.”

Mave pressed both hands together.

Daniel’s voice cracked on the recording.

“Mave, if you ever hear this, I need you to understand that leaving you was not courage. It was the worst act of cowardice I ever survived. I told myself distance kept you safe. Maybe it did. Maybe that was just what I needed to believe.”

Tears blurred her vision.

Vincent looked away to give her privacy.

Daniel went on.

“The original ledger is not money. It is names. Judges. Detectives. Contractors. Men who bought access to people Donovan treated like cargo.”

Felix leaned closer.

“Where is it?”

Daniel’s recorded voice answered as if he had heard.

“Elena hid it where Anthony could not reach it in anger and Donovan could not reach it by force. She gave the key to me. I gave it to Frank Delaney.”

Leo exhaled.

“Of course.”

The tape clicked.

“There are three identical keys. Frank has one. Anthony had one. William stole the third years ago and never learned what it opened.”

Vincent turned toward the cabinets.

“My father’s key.”

They searched every drawer.

Nothing.

Then Mave looked at the photograph of Elena again.

The frame was unusually thick.

She lifted it.

Something rattled.

Vincent stared.

Mave slid the backing free.

A tiny brass key fell into her palm.

Stamped on it were two letters.

G.C.

“What does that mean?” Leo asked.

Vincent’s eyes narrowed.

“Grand Central.”

They all looked at him.

“Elena used to take me there when I was a kid. She said no one noticed anyone in a station because everyone was looking for somebody else.”

Mave’s pulse quickened.

“Locker?”

“Maybe.”

Felix shook his head.

“Grand Central replaced the old lockers decades ago.”

“Storage vault,” Mave said.

Everyone turned to her.

“My father kept old union records there once. I remember my mother complaining about annual fees.”

Vincent was already moving.

Then the office lights went out.

Darkness swallowed the room.

Leo reached for his weapon.

A second later, emergency lights glowed red.

“Power cut,” Felix said.

Vincent pushed Mave behind him.

“Stay with me.”

A gunshot cracked from the hallway.

The bullet struck the wall beside the hidden door.

Everyone dropped.

Leo returned fire toward the ceiling, forcing the attacker back.

Vincent grabbed Mave’s hand.

“Service stairs.”

They moved through Anthony’s room toward a narrow maintenance exit none of Vincent’s current security team had known existed.

Mave nearly laughed from fear.

“Your father had a secret staircase?”

“My father had three secret staircases.”

“That is deeply unhealthy.”

“Now?”

“Still unhealthy.”

Another gunshot echoed.

They reached the lower floor.

Marco met them at the stairwell, bleeding from a cut on his temple.

“Internal breach. Two men entered using Donovan’s credentials.”

“Where is he?” Vincent asked.

“Not here.”

Of course he wasn’t.

Donovan had sent others.

They evacuated through a parking structure.

In the armored SUV, Mave looked down at the brass key clenched in her hand.

Vincent sat beside her, breathing hard but controlled.

Blood marked his shirt cuff.

She grabbed his wrist.

“You’re hit.”

“Glass.”

“Let me see.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Vincent.”

He surrendered his arm.

A shallow cut crossed his forearm.

Mave pressed a clean cloth against it.

For several seconds, neither spoke.

Then Vincent said, “I should have told you.”

She kept pressure on the cut.

“Yes.”

“I thought ignorance protected you.”

“It didn’t.”

“No.”

“You knew my father might be alive?”

“I knew there was a chance.”

Mave looked at him.

“Why did you keep me close?”

Vincent’s answer came quietly.

“Because I promised my father that if Daniel Sullivan’s daughter ever crossed my path, I would make sure no one used her to finish what Donovan started.”

“That’s not why.”

Vincent looked at her.

Mave held his gaze.

“You could have protected me from a distance.”

Silence.

The SUV moved through predawn Manhattan.

Finally, Vincent said, “No.”

“Then why?”

He glanced toward her hand on his arm.

“Because after three weeks, you reorganized my entire calendar without permission.”

“That annoyed you.”

“It fascinated me.”

“Vincent.”

“Because you were the only person in that office who told me when I was wrong. Because you brought me coffee on the anniversary of my mother’s death without asking why I looked like hell. Because you laughed at Leo’s terrible jokes and never laughed at mine unless they were actually funny.”

Mave’s heart shifted painfully.

“That is a very low standard for romance.”

He almost smiled.

Then Leo turned from the front seat.

“Sorry to interrupt whatever emotionally constipated thing this is.”

Mave closed her eyes.

Vincent looked murderous.

Leo held up a tablet.

“I found Frank Delaney.”

Every trace of humor vanished.

“Where?”

“Security camera at Grand Central. Ten minutes ago.”