Chapter 2 - The Audit of the BullyThe air in the diner went completely, terrifyingly ice-cold.
Derek Lawson took two fast, clumsy steps backward, his heels striking the edge of the leather booth, his hands raised in a frantic, groveling plea.
"Mr. Castellano! Listen to me!" Derek shrieked, his voice cracking into high, pathetic squeaks. "My father is Richard Lawson! He owns Lawson Commercial Real Estate! He’s currently negotiating the secondary port leases with your firm! You can't do this over some penniless waitress who doesn't even have a last name on her tax forms!"
Vincent Castellano took three slow, deliberate strides forward.
He didn't hit Derek. He didn't draw a blade. He stopped three inches from Derek’s face, towering over him, his storm-gray eyes holding a cold, lethal fire that made Derek’s knees buckle under his suit.
"Her name is Amelia Vance," Vincent stated flatly.
Derek’s jaw sagged open in total, speech-bound horror. The color drained from his ears so fast he looked like a corpse standing upright. "Amelia... Vance...?"
"The daughter of my late partner, Arthur Vance," Vincent revealed, every word dropped into the silent diner like a heavy slab of cold iron. "The sole heiress to thirty-five percent of the primary shipping docks at Pier 42. A woman who came to my diner three years ago after escaping a abusive monster named Raymond Fletcher... a woman who asked me for a simple job as a waitress because she wanted to earn her own bread without using her family's wealth."
The entire diner let out a collective, horrified gasp.
Nikki and Derek’s second associate dropped flat onto their knees right on the floorboards, raising their hands in total, groveling surrender.
Derek thrashed his head back, his eyes bulging out of his head as he stared at the woman he had just knocked unconscious on the floor.
"She... she was a waitress..." Derek choked out, tears of wild, overwhelming terror spilling down his face. "She... she wore an apron... she lived in a small apartment in Red Hook..."
"She wore an apron because she possesses a dignity you will never understand, Derek," Vincent replied softly, reaching into his suit pocket, pulling out an encrypted satellite phone, dialing a single extension.
He put the phone to his ear, his baritone cold, absolute, and sovereign.
"Frank," Vincent commanded flatly. "Execute the immediate foreclosure on Lawson Commercial Real Estate. Cancel every port lease, freeze their primary credit lines at First National, and notify the Federal District Prosecutor that Richard Lawson’s tax evasion files are on his desk."
Derek let out a guttural, frantic shriek, falling flat onto his knees right on the floorboards, grabbing at Vincent's leather shoes. "NO! NO! PLEASE, MR. CASTELLANO! MY FATHER WILL KILL ME! MY FAMILY WILL BE BANKRUPT BY TOMORROW MORNING!"
Vincent didn't look down at the groveling coward. He stepped over Derek’s shaking hands, turning his back on him as the red and blue strobe lights of the arriving ambulance illuminated the wet rain through the front windows.
"Marco," Vincent instructed flatly.
May you like
"Yes, Don Vincent?"
"Take Derek Lawson to the secondary warehouse at Pier 42," Vincent ordered. "Let his father know that if he wants his son back... he signs over one hundred percent of his firm's equity by midnight."
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