Chapter 4 - The Man Outside the Preschool
Three days later, everything changed.
My security chief entered my office carrying photographs.
“A man has been watching the preschool.”
My blood turned cold.
The photographs showed a black sedan.
Same vehicle.
Three mornings.
Different parking spaces.
One driver.
I recognized him.
Victor Salerno.
A soldier working for the Mancini family.
Our current enemies.
“Does Gabriel know?”
“Not yet.”
“Keep it that way.”
I called Gabriel.
“Come to my office.”
He arrived two minutes later.
I showed him the photographs.
His face became something frightening.
“Elena?”
“Safe.”
“Noah?”
“Also safe.”
Gabriel reached for his coat.
I blocked him.
“Sit down.”
“Move.”
“Gabriel.”
“They watched the kid.”
“I know.”
“I said move.”
For the first time in ten years, my lieutenant was prepared to disobey me.
Not for money.
Not for territory.
For a four-year-old boy.
I understood.
But anger makes men stupid.
“That's what they want,” I said.
He stopped.
“They know about Elena.”
“How?”
“That is what we're going to discover.”
By midnight, we had the answer.
Victor Salerno wasn't watching Noah to hurt him.
He was watching Gabriel.
The Mancinis had noticed my most trusted lieutenant visiting Elena's apartment.
They believed she could be leverage.
They were wrong.
Because by threatening Elena and Noah, they hadn't created Gabriel's weakness.
They had created mine.
The next morning, I invited Mancini's representative to a private restaurant.
No guns were placed on the table.
None were necessary.
I slid the photographs toward him.
“Tell your boss something.”
He looked at them.
“That woman and that boy are outside the game.”
He smiled.
“Everyone's inside the game eventually.”
I leaned forward.
“No.”
The smile disappeared.
“Businesses are business. Territory is territory. But children?”
I tapped Noah's photograph.
“You watch him again, and there will be no negotiations left between our families.”
He studied my face.
“You care about the kid?”
I remembered purple crayons.
Pancakes.
Strawberry ice cream.
A small hand holding mine.
“No,” I said.
Then I smiled.
“I care about what happens to men who frighten him.”
The message was understood.
Victor Salerno disappeared from the preschool the next day.
May you like
The black sedan never returned.
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