Chapter 4 - The Ghost of Taylor Street
The wood groaned under the pressure. The industrial resin holding the seams together cracked with a sharp, dry pop.
Liam didn't rush. A dead man coming back to life had to choose his moment with the surgical precision of an assassin. He pushed harder, his shoulders sliding out of the satin lining, his lungs dragging in a massive, burning lungful of stale chapel air.
He sat up in the center of the open casket like a specter rising from a tomb.
His face was pale, his black hair matted with sweat, and his tuxedo jacket wrinkled beyond recognition. But his eyes were terrifyingly clear.
He swung his legs over the side of the bier, his bare feet touching the cold marble floor. His muscles shook violently, protesting the lingering effects of the neurotoxin, but he forced them to obey. He reached out and picked up the titanium crowbar Carmine had carelessly left on the altar.
“Let’s see how much you like sharing, brother,” he muttered, his voice sounding like grinding stones after four days of silence.
He didn't go upstairs immediately. If he stormed into the main house now, he would trigger alarms, alert the thirty armed guards stationed on the perimeter, and give Carmine and Renata a chance to burn the physical ledgers.
Instead, he slipped out through the vestry door into the grey, mist-soaked dawn of the Lake Forest estate, moving like a ghost through the rhododendron bushes toward the service wing.
The basement archive was locked with a heavy electronic deadbolt, but Liam knew every architectural secret of the house he had renovated himself. He bypassed the keypad by accessing the manual override panel behind the fuse box, punched in his father’s old birthday code, and pulled the heavy steel door open.
The archive smelled of old paper, damp brick, and floor wax.
He strode directly to Tommy Ward’s old desk—a battered metal filing cabinet tucked into the darkest corner beneath the stairs. Following Luna’s exact description, Liam slid his fingers along the underside of the bottom drawer, found the hidden magnetic latch, and popped the false bottom loose.
Inside lay a thick, leather-bound ledger labeled Personal Audit: Belcrest & Associates, alongside three encrypted flash drives and a stack of signed wire transfer receipts.
Liam flipped open the ledger.
The pages were covered in Tommy’s neat, obsessive handwriting. Every offshore account, every kickback payment to Falcone captains, and every fraudulent real estate acquisition was meticulously documented with dates, bank routing numbers, and—most damning of all—recorded phone transcripts between Carmine Russo and the heads of the rival South Side syndicate.
They hadn't just been stealing from the family; they had been selling the territory out piece by piece to their sworn enemies in exchange for a guaranteed monopoly once Liam was out of the way.
“Stupidity is expensive,” Liam whispered, sliding the ledger into the inner pocket of his wrinkled jacket.
As he turned to leave the archive, a soft gasp echoed from the doorway.
Liam spun around, the titanium crowbar raised instinctively.
Standing in the doorway, clutching a small canvas duffel bag and trembling from head to toe, was Luna. Her eyes widened in absolute terror as she stared at the man she had spoken to in the dark chapel just hours earlier.
“Mr... Mr. Falcone?” she stammered, dropping her bag. “You’re... you’re out.”
“You kept your word,” Liam said, lowering the crowbar slightly. His voice was still rough, but the terrifying authority in his tone was unmistakable. “You came back.”
“I was packing my things,” she said, swallowing hard, trying to keep her composure. “They’re holding a full staff meeting in the main hall at eight o’clock. Carmine is announcing the liquidation of the household accounts. I... I couldn't let them take everything.”
Liam looked at the young woman—pale, exhausted, six months pregnant, and standing her ground against an empire that had crushed men twice her age.
“What’s your name again?” he asked quietly.
“Luna Hartley, sir. I was Tommy’s—”
“I know who you were,” Liam interrupted, stepping closer. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a heavy platinum key ring—the master keys to every Falcone property, vault, and safehouse in the tri-state area—and dropped them into her trembling hand. “Luna, do you trust me?”
She looked down at the keys, then up into his dark, unblinking eyes. A slow, steady resolution settled over her features.
“My fiancé trusted you with his life, Mr. Falcone,” she said softly. “And you’re the only dead man I know who’s currently holding a crowbar.”
Liam’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile.
May you like
“Good. Because we have a board meeting to crash.”
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