He leaves, closing the door behind him with a soft click. The silence that follows is complete. I stare at the skyline, picturing Lucy somewhere on the other side, close enough to walk to in twenty minutes, but so far away she might as well be on another planet.
The thought is intolerable.
I finish the drink, stare at the letter again, then pick up my phone and dial a number I haven’t called in a decade.
The man on the other end answers after one ring. “Alessio. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Gianni,” I say, “you still have those friends in the City Marshal’s office?”
“I have friends everywhere,” he says, the smug bastard. “What do you need?”
“I need a message delivered to a family who thinks they’re still running New York. Discreet, but not invisible. Scare, but don’t ruin. Not yet.”
Gianni sniffs. “You want it personal or professional?”
“You know which.”
He laughs. “You’re really in love, aren’t you?”
I don’t answer. “One hour,” I say, and hang up.
I think about sending Lucy a message, just a word or a sign. But I know her grandmother, her father, and a dozen cousins are already watching her. Every word would be seen, picked apart,and used against her. It's better to wait until the city is on my side, and only then reach out to her openly.
The night after Gianni’s intervention, Enzo knocks on my office door holding a laptop and wearing the same suit three days running.
“Got something for you,” he says, sliding the laptop onto my desk. He pulls up a video feed—it’s from a parlor room, Fifth Avenue. I recognize the Stuyvesant decor: all inherited wealth and Chinoiserie vases. There are five people in the frame. Lucy is not among them.
He fast-forwards, showing me a heated conversation: the father, Lionel, stands with his hands in fists, shouting at a woman who must be the grandmother. She stays calm, almost unreadable, and drinks her sherry straight. A third person, her mother, sits wiping tears from her face, while a man I recognize from the dossier—Derek, the cousin with the gambling problem—paces in the background.
Enzo freezes on a moment where John slams his fist on the table, shouting, “It’s not just the donors, mother, it’s the feds. They’re coming for us, and if we don’t play it right, we’re on the evening news.” The grandmother doesn’t flinch. She takes a sip, crosses her arms, leans back like a Roman emperor deciding whether to extend mercy.
Enzo plays the next segment. It’s the matriarch, speaking low and cold: “We hold. We cut the girl off. If she comes crawling, we may reconsider, but until then, let the wolves have her.”
She’s daring me to make a move.
Enzo stops the feed. “You want to go nuclear?”
“Yes,” I say. “But with elegance.”
Enzo clears his throat. "There's also the matter with Carina. She's?—"
I cut him off with a wave. "Handle it. My daughter knows her own mind. Let her be for now." My fingers tap against the desk."It's not enough to destroy them. Any animal can do that. The real pleasure is making them come to me."
CHAPTER TEN
LUCY
The crash comes at 9:31 PM, not a dramatic shattering but something worse: the dull thud of my mother’s vintage crocodile handbag hitting the entryway floor, heavy with resignation, as if even the family's belongings have given up. She walks six steps into my apartment before her monogrammed coat slips to the floor, too. Now she stands at the end of the runner rug, arms crossed so tightly she looks like she might break. The door closes behind her with a rush of damp fall air, and for a moment, the city noise outside sounds like a call to confession. She doesn’t look at me right away. Instead, she takes in the state of my living room, the mug I left on the coffee table, and the pale blue silk pajamas I’m wearing at an hour she thinks is "at least marginally indecent" for company. I almost smile.
Then her gaze settles on me, as blunt and cold as a letter opener. "You haven't answered any of my calls," she says, which is true, though I'd deleted her voicemails before they'd even finished downloading. Next comes the phrase that always signals the start of a Stuyvesant-Family-Inquisition: "Sit down, please. We need to talk."
I barely resist flopping back onto the couch and instead tuck my legs beneath me, a child’s habit she used to scold but nowignores. She sits on the far edge of the ottoman, back straight, her tailored jacket perfectly smooth. I say nothing. I’m good at this, at holding a silence until the other person gives up.
She lasts six seconds. "People are calling our house, Lucinda," she breathes, fingers trembling against her pearls. "City auditors showed up at the foundation. Your grandmother has received not one, but three inquiries in the last forty-eight hours regarding your... situation. The Whitmores canceled their annual donation and declined our invitation to the gala. And there was a man—" She swallows hard. "A man with an accent who wouldn't give his name but suggested your father might want to 'reconsider his position' on certain matters."
I roll the stem of my wine glass between my fingers, watching the liquid pitch like storm water against a seawall. "What situation is that?"
She sets her jaw. "You know very well. You met him, didn't you? That man—Morrone. You told the truth for once, and it’s already out."