Chapter 8 - The Traitor at the Table
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Enzo lowered the strip of 35mm negatives from the light.
For ten seconds, he stood motionless beside the marble island, the silence radiating off his six-foot-three frame more terrifying than any explosion of rage.
"Viktor Volkov isn't hunting you for two million dollars because you burned down his brother’s house eighteen years ago," Enzo said, his voice softer than silk over a razor blade. "Viktor didn't put out that contract—Salvatore Bellini is bankrolling Viktor’s fentanyl push into my docks behind my back, and when your foster records hit the state server on Monday, Salvatore realized the girl who stole Grigori’s black book in 2008 was living right here in South Boston."
Jade’s eyes widened as the pieces clicked together. "If you see that negative and read that ledger, you find out your own godfather murdered your uncle in 2008, framed the Russians to start a war that weakened your father, and has been working with Viktor Volkov for eighteen years!"
"And at ten o’clock this morning," Enzo said, checking the Patek Philippe on his wrist—which read 5:15 AM—"Salvatore and the three other Boston captains are coming to the downstairs boardroom of this building for our weekly sit-down."
Jade’s stomach dropped. "Wait—who on your crew knows you brought me to this compound tonight?"
"Luca and Rocco."
"Rocco," Jade repeated sharply, standing up from the barstool. "In the diner, before I broke his wrist, Rocco tried to pick a fight with me over nothing—almost like he was trying to make a scene or check my hands! And outside my apartment on Dorchester Avenue twenty minutes ago, who did you leave alone in the alley with the Escalade and a radio while we went up the roof?"
Rocco.
And when they had come down from the apartment with the tin box, the two Russians in the G-Wagon out front had conveniently pulled away thirty seconds earlier without firing a shot!
Enzo didn't waste a single breath arguing. He drew his suppressed SIG Sauer and strode to the armored interior security monitor on the penthouse wall, pulling up the live CCTV feeds of the lower compound and the guard barracks on the first floor.
The screen was completely black—VIDEO LOSS.
At that exact moment, the main power in the penthouse cut out, plunging the third floor into darkness for two seconds before the red emergency backup strips along the baseboards flickered on.
And over the internal building intercom speaker beside the elevator doors came Rocco’s voice—accompanied by the unmistakable, cultured Russian accent of a man standing right beside him in the ground-floor security vault:
"You shouldn't have stopped me from shooting her in the diner, Boss," Rocco growled over the speaker. "Don Salvatore promised me the Charlestown piers once you’re gone—and Viktor Volkov brought thirty men through the sea-gate five minutes ago."
Then a second voice took the mic—cold, aristocratic, and thick with Brighton Beach iron:
"Enzo Moretti," Viktor Volkov purred through the intercom. "My brother Grigori spent three years training Number Nine before she burned his face off in Sullivan County. Send the girl and the tin box down the freight elevator in three minutes, and Salvatore says we’ll make your death quick. Keep her up there, and we come up the stairs with thermite and RPGs."
Jade grabbed her denim jacket off the counter, shoved the black ledger and the negatives deep into the zippered inner pocket, and picked up her suppressed Glock 43 plus the spare M4 carbine from Enzo’s gun rack behind the bar.
"Thirty men downstairs covering the freight elevator and the main stairwell," Jade said, her green eyes calm, focused, and completely fearless as she racked the charging handle of the carbine with a sharp clack. "Tell me you have a way off this roof that doesn't involve swimming in fifty-degree harbor water."
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Enzo looked at her standing in the red emergency light with an assault rifle braced against her torn diner blouse, and a fierce, predatory grin broke across his face.
"Better," Enzo said, tossing her two spare thirty-round magazines and pulling a heavy ring of brass master keys from his safe. "This loft was built over a World War II Navy torpedo-boat repair slip. There’s a dry utility catwalk running underneath the concrete pier deck—right below the floorboards of the garage where Viktor’s trucks are parked."
