Chapter 2 - The Price of a Brother’s Debt
By 8:00 a.m., sunlight cut hard angles through the windows of his home office.
Vincent was dressed in a charcoal suit, though the jacket remained over the back of his chair.
A cup of black coffee sat untouched on his desk.
The door opened without a knock.
Aleandro White entered carrying a manila folder.
Vincent’s underboss looked more like an accountant than an enforcer.
Wire-rimmed glasses.
Perfect navy suit.
The appearance was misleading.
Aleandro fought like a rabid animal when necessary.
“Morning, boss.”
He dropped the folder onto the polished desk.
Vincent looked at him.
“Got what I asked for?”
“Charmian Flannery. 19. Foster care after her mother died. No father listed. Aged out roughly 1 year ago.”
Aleandro opened the file.
“Rents a shoebox on the South Side. Works here 3 days a week. Also works at a diner on Fourth Street.”
He continued.
“Other 4 days, St. Jude’s. Business major. Straight A’s.”
Then paused.
“Or she was.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Explain.”
“She hasn’t attended class in 3 days.”
Aleandro slid over a printed attendance record.
“Missed a midterm yesterday. Professors haven’t heard from her. Diner manager says she called out sick Sunday and Monday.”
“Where was she?”
“Working.”
Aleandro’s voice lowered.
“Just not at the diner.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Stop playing games.”
Aleandro sighed.
“She has a brother. Tommy Flannery. 4 years older. Degenerate gambler. Low-level tweaker.”
He adjusted his glasses.
“Ran up a $40,000 debt with the Petrov crew.”
The Petrovs were a mid-level Russian operation working illegal card games and loan sharking out of the industrial district.
They paid the Costa family heavily for the privilege of operating.
Bottom feeders.
Useful.
Violent.
“Tommy ran,” Aleandro continued. “Left town 2 weeks ago. They couldn’t find him, so they went to next of kin.”
Vincent felt something cold tighten inside him.
“They found Charmian on campus last Friday.”
The image of her scrubbing blood from the shirt returned.
“They grabbed her?”
“Cornered her in a parking garage. We pulled university footage.”
Aleandro’s mouth flattened.
“3 Petrov men. Pushed her around pretty badly. Didn’t kill her. Dead girls don’t pay debts.”
“How is she paying?”
“Cleaning stash houses. Running cash drops. Working underground club floors overnight.”
Aleandro continued.
“They add interest daily. She missed school because they had her scrubbing blood from a warehouse floor in the port district after a deal went wrong.”
Vincent lifted his coffee.
Cold.
He put it down.
The anger inside him was not hot.
It was precise.
Absolute zero.
The Petrovs operated because Vincent allowed them to operate.
They breathed because the Costa Syndicate considered them useful.
Yet they had laid hands on someone under his roof.
They had taken a 19-year-old woman trying to escape poverty through school and 2 jobs and forced her to pay for the choices of a cowardly brother.
“They put hands on her.”
Not a question.
Aleandro nodded.
“Anton Petrov’s nephew. Heavy hand. Bad temper.”
Vincent stood.
He crossed to the humidor, selected a cigar, and clipped it.
He did not light it.
“What do you want to do?” Aleandro asked. “She’s just a maid. We could fire her, hand her the last paycheck, and let the Russians deal with it. It isn’t our mess.”
Vincent turned.
The look made Aleandro move half a step backward.
“She’s on my payroll.”
The words carried across the office.
“She eats in my kitchen. Walks my halls.”
Vincent set the unlit cigar into a glass ashtray.
“That makes her mine to protect.”
A pause.
“Nobody bleeds in my house unless I put the hole in them.”
Aleandro nodded.
“I’ll put a crew together.”
“No.”
Vincent looked back toward the desk.
“Not yet.”
He tapped the folder.
“Bring her here.”
“She’s mopping the East Wing.”
“I don’t care if she’s performing open-heart surgery.”
His voice sharpened.
“Bring her.”
When Charmian appeared in the office, she had changed into her gray uniform. The white collar was buttoned all the way up, but it couldn't hide the discoloration spreading along her jaw. She saw the folder on the desk and stopped. For a second Vincent thought she might run. Instead, she folded her hands behind her back so he wouldn't see the bandages.
“Mrs. Gable said you wanted me. If this is about the pan, I'll replace it.”
“Sit down.”
“I'd rather stand.”
Aleandro's eyebrows rose. Vincent gave him a look that sent him toward the door. “We're going to talk alone.”
When the latch clicked, Vincent turned the folder so its contents faced Charmian. The attendance sheet sat on top. Under it was a photograph of her brother, Tommy, smiling into a camera outside a racetrack, wearing the same red baseball cap he'd worn the last time she'd seen him.
Her face changed at the sight of him. Not relief. Anger so exhausted it barely had the strength to show itself.
“You had someone look into me,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You could've asked.”
“Would you have answered?”
“Maybe not. But it still would've been asking.”
Vincent held her gaze. He wasn't accustomed to apologies, particularly in his own office. “You're right. I should have started there.”
She glanced toward the door as though checking whether she'd heard him correctly. He pushed a glass of water across the desk but didn't tell her to drink it.
“The Petrovs say your brother owes forty thousand dollars,” he said. “They've decided you should pay.”
Charmian's hands curled. “He borrowed eight.”
Vincent sat still. “You know that for certain?”
“I saw the agreement. Tommy showed me because he wanted me to tell him whether the interest made sense. I told him it didn't make sense to borrow from men who broke a dishwasher's fingers at the diner. He signed anyway.”
“Why didn't you tell the police?”
“I tried.” She gave a small, humorless laugh. “I walked into a station with my face looking like this. The man at the desk asked whether I wanted to report my brother for gambling. Then my phone rang. A Petrov guy was standing outside my apartment, reading my address to me. I left before I gave my name.”
Vincent took a careful breath. It was easier to despise the Petrovs than to acknowledge that his own protection payments had made their operation possible.
“Whatever your brother did, you don't owe them money,” he said.
“Tell them that.”
“I intend to.”
“You don't get it.” She stepped forward. “They're not just making me work. They made me sign something. They said if I told anyone, they'd take it to the police and say I stole from them. And there was a woman at the warehouse. A cleaner. Her name was Rosa Alvarez.”
“Was?”
Charmian stared at the carpet. “She was there when I got there. There was blood on the floor. They told me it was from a fight. Rosa whispered that I should remember the license plate of a blue delivery van. One of the men heard her. He took her through a metal door. I never saw her come back.”
Vincent thought of the blood-soaked college shirt. “And the blood in my sink?”
“Rosa grabbed my sleeve before he took her. Her hand was bleeding. I thought if I washed it out...” Charmian stopped, embarrassed by her own hope. “I don't know what I thought.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She said, ‘They're using the school.’”
Vincent's eyes moved to the folder. St. Jude's College. An unremarkable name until it wasn't.
Charmian reached into the pocket of her apron and brought out a small spiral notebook. It was swollen with water and covered in grease stains. “I copied the numbers I saw on the warehouse slips. I was going to give them to my accounting professor. Then they found out I'd missed a pickup, and I thought...” She swallowed. “I thought they'd kill Tommy.”
Vincent didn't reach for the notebook. “What do you want me to do?”
She looked at him with something closer to disbelief than gratitude. “Make sure they can't touch me while I report what happened. Don't kill anybody for me. Don't tell me I belong to you. And don't pretend this is just about your house.”
He looked down at the folder Aleandro had brought him. A man in his position could buy an answer to almost anything. For the first time that morning, buying one felt like the wrong approach.
“All right,” he said. “We start with what you saw.”
Charmian opened her notebook to a page marked with a greasy thumbprint. One invoice number had been circled three times. Beneath it she'd written a name in capitals: COSTA EDUCATION FOUNDATION.
May you like
Vincent stopped breathing for a beat. He had signed that foundation's annual report himself.
And the signature on the invoice wasn't his.
