Chapter 8 - The Shadow Hand
An hour later, wearing a heavy flannel shirt and jeans she had found in the bedroom closet, Mave returned to the main room.
Vincent was sitting at the table, staring intensely at the laptop screen. His coffee mug sat empty beside him.
“Find something?” she asked, pulling up a chair beside him.
“The person who opened your mother’s ledger wasn't Leo,” Vincent said, his voice dark and troubled. “Leo was just the muscle Julian bought off.”
Mave looked at the screen. A series of IP addresses were displayed, mapped back to a private server node located in lower Manhattan.
“Who does that server belong to?”
Vincent reached out and tapped a key, revealing the corporate registration document for the IP address.
Mave gasped.
The name at the top of the owner registry was: DONOVAN COSTA.
“Your brother?” Mave whispered in shock.
Donovan Costa was Vincent’s younger brother, the family’s chief financial coordinator who had supposedly been home sick with the flu during the Plaza charity dinner.
“Donovan didn't have the flu,” Vincent said, his jaw clenching until the muscle twitched. “He was setting up the trap at the Plaza. He knew Julian was coming. He gave Julian access to the Belize ledger so they could strip my legal assets out from under me.”
“Why would your own brother do that to you?”
“Because Donovan thinks I’m ruining our father’s legacy,” Vincent said bitterly. “He wants the old family back—the extortion, the drugs, the protection rackets. He thinks my push toward legitimate business makes us weak.”
Vincent stood up, walking toward the window and peering through a crack in the blinds out at the dark river.
“Julian promised Donovan full control of the Philadelphia shipping lanes if Donovan helped him secure your mother’s ledger,” Vincent continued. “They’re meeting at the Queens terminal at six this morning to finalize the transfer of the funds.”
Mave checked her watch. It was 5:15 AM.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, standing up beside him.
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Vincent turned around, pulling a fresh magazine from his pocket and snapping it into his pistol with a sharp, lethal metallic click.
“I’m going to end the Costa Syndicate once and for all,” Vincent said.
