I slipped into the driver’s seat and pinged her phone, quickly taking a few lesser known routes to catch up with her. Her taxi wasn’t remarkably fast, definitely one of the less aggressive ones that drove the city streets and it didn’t take long for me to see the familiar license plate of that vehicle.
I surveyed the people and the cars around her, and nothing appeared to be remarkably suspicious. I opened her calendar on the mirrored phone and saw that she had a meeting with her agent. The drive was uneventful and when we arrived at the small office building, I parked across the street and watched as she walked inside. After taking the keys out of the ignition, I walked down the block a little bit and got myself a hot coffee from a food cart. I sipped on it and leaned back against a brick wall, scoping out her agency for any shady faces.
For a while, everything seemed fine. People moved along in normal patterns, going from work and meeting up with friends and just slogging along through their daily lives. The sun began to set, and the crowd thinned out. I walked down the street, sipping my coffee and casually peering down the dark alleys encased in shadow.
A flurry of activity at the end of one caught my attention. A blacked-out car was parked between buildings and it was still running. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as four men in black coats climbed out. They talked amongst themselves and although I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I remained on high alert. I strode closer to Chloe’s agency.
I was dressed in casual clothing, a pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt beneath a black jacket. I adjusted the beanie on top of my scalp, covering up the wayward locks of hair that had managed to escape. I kept my head down and moved along. The men adjusted their jackets and I caught several glimpses of their guns in the process. One of them gestured toward the agency and I stiffened, watching even more closely now. They gathered in a circle and started talking together. With practiced precision, I read their lips and stilled once her name fell off their lips.
Fuck.
Quickly, I texted the rest of my team. I sipped my coffee and continued to walk down the sidewalk until I was directly across from the alley.
For about ten minutes, I scrolled the contents of Chloe’s mirrored phone, all the while keeping my eyes on the four men. They appeared to be unorganized as they talked to one another and one of them even had trouble loading their handgun. I rolled my eyes. No matter how dumb they were, I had to stop them.
My phone pinged and I lifted my gaze from the mafia goons to see Eric, Daniel, and Michael walking up.
“Anthony and Julian went to join Dean,” Eric said, and I nodded.
“They’re over there. I recognized one of them as a Lucchese. Nick is probably trying to make a move against me,” I replied.
“Fucking asshole. We’re going to have to teach him a lesson soon. He’s long overdue,” Daniel scoffed. He wasn’t Nick’s biggest fan either, but there was more to that story than he told any of us. I didn’t dig. If he wanted to keep his personal life to himself, so be it. I didn’t care as long as he got his job done.
All of them I trusted with my life. We’d served together for many years as a part of a special team in the CIA that was tasked with eliminating terrorists and other threats to the United States, but when it came to domestic threats to the states like the big five of New York, our hands were bound because the higher ups I worked for had their own financial ties to the mob.
Isabella’s death had been the last trigger.
The CIA didn’t typically investigate murder cases like hers, but I brought it to my bosses anyway because I was convinced there was more to the story. The higher ups wouldn’t allow me and my team to investigate, but I did anyway because I needed to. Isabella had gotten caught up in a dangerous world and I had been determined to bring justice to whoever had caused her death.
The day after the car crash occurred, I found her journal tossed on the side of the road. The police officers that had been tasked with casing the scene missed it, but I didn’t. The state cops were sloppy. They didn’t dust for prints. They were quick to call the crash an accident even though the brake lines to Isabella’s car had been intentionally frayed. They ignored the fact that the eighteen-wheeler was more than two hundred miles off of its planned route. The driver even received a large deposit in his bank account of more than twenty-five thousand dollars. All the signs of suspicious activity were there, but they called it an accident anyway.
Back then, I hadn’t been prepared to take on one of the kingpins of the big five here in New York City. The confines of working for the United States government were too much for me, so I left the CIA, and my team came with me. We made a list of targets and we took them down together. I led them and they followed me without question.
I answered to no one and throughout the years that followed, we’d taken down a number of corrupt billionaires, banks, criminals, and domestic terrorists that operated under the radar for years.
We called ourselves The Seven and in the dark undergrounds of the world, they trembled at our name. The mafia answered to me. Criminal enterprises answered to me. We were infamous and I wasn’t afraid to punish those that stood against us. Sometimes that meant putting the right people in prison and sometimes that meant my enemies ended up dead.
Right now, Nick Lucchese was on fucking thin ice. If these men didn’t walk away today, I would pay him a visit to remind him who was in charge myself.
“Come on. Let’s put an end to this,” I said. I didn’t look back, but I knew my men would follow me anyway. We crossed the street together and approached the alley. The mafia goons lifted their gazes in our direction as we strode toward them. I took the lead and pulled my dark beanie off.
“Do you have plans tonight, boys?” I said, not caring that my voice echoed off the brick walls of the alley. Once they heard me, they took a step back. They knew who I was. One of them tried to stand tall and stand up to me and only then was I able to see his face.
“Matthew Lucchese,” I murmured.
“Silas, I didn’t expect to see you here,” he answered.
“I bet you didn’t, but here I am anyway,” I replied. “What are you four up to tonight?”
“We were just out on a walk,” he answered evasively, and I smirked at the audacity of his lies.
“Were you now? Did you plan on running into someone along the way? Perhaps a pretty woman in the dead of the night?” I pressed. He fidgeted a bit nervously in front of me. I reached into the back of my belt and pulled out a knife from its holster. Matt’s eyes dropped down to my fingers and I twirled the blade. I stared back at him with a certain amount of measured arrogance and his face twisted a bit in fear.
“No,” he answered, but the dishonesty was so obvious at this point that it would have been better for him to say nothing at all.
“Nick sent you here for Chloe Banks, didn’t he? He saw that I had an interest in the pretty little thing and he wanted to send me a message,” I offered, casually dragging the edge of my knife along my palm.
Matthew knew better than to answer.