Chapter 4 - The Syndicate’s ShadowThe transition from a quiet accountant to the focal point of an underground war happened faster than I could update my resume.
Two days after our meeting in the Maybach, my little Brooklyn apartment was broken into. Nothing was stolen—no laptops, no cash, no jewelry. But when I opened my refrigerator, I found a dead falcon wrapped in a strip of red silk ribbon, tagged with a brass casing stamped with the crest of the Moretti family—Leo’s primary rival in the tri-state shipping syndicates.
They weren't just coming for Leo anymore. They knew about me. They knew I had been pulled into the orbit of the Casaro patriarch, and in the brutal calculus of the mafia, collateral damage was just another word for leverage.
Marcus picked me up within twenty minutes of my frantic call to his burner phone. By midnight, I wasn't back in Brooklyn; I was staying in a heavily fortified safehouse in upstate New York—a sprawling stone lodge tucked deep into the Adirondack woods, surrounded by pines, security cameras, and men with submachine guns in the perimeter watchtowers.
And Leo was there with me.
We sat across from each other in front of a massive stone fireplace, the flames casting flickering golden light over Leo’s silver hair as he cleaned a custom-engraved Browning 9mm with methodical precision.
“The Morettis are testing the waters,” Leo said, not looking up from the slide he was wiping down with an oily rag. “They think because I shipped my son to Sicily, I’m showing weakness. They think bringing you into this fold is a crack in my armor.”
“Is it?” I asked, sitting rigidly on the edge of a leather armchair, a cup of untouched black coffee steaming between my hands.
Leo stopped cleaning the pistol. He looked up, his dark eyes locking onto mine with a fierce, unwavering intensity that made my chest tighten.
“You are not armor, Myra,” he said softly. “Armor is something you wear to protect yourself. You are... the reason I remember why I’m fighting.”
The words hung in the crackling air of the lodge, heavy with a forbidden weight. He was old enough to be my father—older, even. He was a ruthless syndicate boss with blood on his hands and enemies in every major port from Boston to Miami. Yet sitting here in the quiet woods, surrounded by armed guards, I felt safer with Leo Casaro than I had ever felt in the arms of his son.
“They left a red silk ribbon,” I murmured, looking down at my hands. “The same color as the dress I wore that night.”
Leo’s jaw hardened, a muscle ticking violently in his cheek. He set the gun down on the coffee table with a heavy clack.
“Vincenzo Moretti has a short memory,” Leo muttered, his voice dropping into a dark, menacing purr. “He forgets that forty years ago, I cleared the docks of his entire family before breakfast. He thinks an old lion is a toothless lion.”
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“What are we going to do?” I asked.
Leo looked up, a sharp, dangerous smile touching the corners of his mouth. “We aren't going to hide in the woods, Myra. We’re going to draw them out. And we’re going to show them what happens when you touch what belongs to a Casaro.”
