Chapter 4 - The Puppet Master
“Mr. Vance?” I gasped, backing up against the wooden dock railing. “You... you sent me here.”
Vance offered a polished, sinister smile that didn't reach his cold blue eyes. He slowly descended the metal stairs, his hands casually tucked into his trousers pockets while his guards kept their rifles locked on Roman’s chest.
“I did indeed, my dear Maeve,” Vance said smoothly. “Though I must admit, I didn't expect you to last forty-eight hours. Most of the girls I sent to this terrible house fled within a day. But you? You stayed. You cleaned. You even cooked them breakfast.”
Roman didn't flinch. He stood like a wall between Vance’s men and me, his hand resting calmly on his sidearm, assessing the angles for a shot he knew he couldn't take without getting us both killed.
“Vance,” Roman said, his voice dripping with venom. “You were my father’s accountant. You’ve been skimming off the Syndicate’s legitimate operations for years.”
“Skimming?” Vance scoffed, stopping ten feet away on the catwalk. “I built your father’s empire, Roman! Carmine had the muscle, but I had the mind. And when Elena ran off with the ledger codes twenty years ago, Carmine blamed me! He ruined my reputation, forced me into the shadows, and treated me like a glorified headhunter!”
Vance turned his gaze to me, his smile widening into something predatory. “For two decades, I tracked Elena Carter. When she died in that miserable Boston hospital, I thought the key was lost forever. But then I did a little digging into her estate. She left everything to you. Including her personal effects.”
The realization hit me like a physical blow. The agency job wasn't a lucky break. Vance had engineered my eviction, bought out my apartment building’s management, and forced me into desperate poverty just so he could offer me the job at Falcone Manor. He wanted to force a confrontation between me and the brothers, hoping I would lead them straight to the missing money.
“She didn't have any money, Vance!” I spat, anger overriding my fear. “You made me suffer for nothing!”
“Oh, she had the money, Maeve,” Vance countered. “ Carmine’s fifty million dollars wasn't in cash. It was converted into early digital bearer bonds—accessible only through a private key phrase. And your mother was smart. She knew she couldn't write it down on paper where Carmine’s men could find it.”
Vance snapped his fingers, and one of his mercenaries stepped forward, holding a worn, tarnished brass tin.
My heart seized. It was my mother’s recipe box—the one item I had kept on my small kitchen counter back at my apartment.
“Hey! Give that back!” I yelled, taking a step forward, but Roman caught my arm, holding me firmly in place.
“Easy, Maeve,” Roman whispered under his breath. “Wait for my mark.”
Vance picked up the small metal box and opened the lid, pulling out a stack of yellowed, handwritten index cards tied together with a faded blue ribbon.
“I had my men sweep your apartment while you were busy scrubbing floorboards here,” Vance sneered, turning through the cards. “Banana bread... clam chowder... buttermilk biscuits. Charming. But completely useless without the cipher.”
He looked up, staring directly into my eyes. “Elena Carter was a genius, but she was also a mother. She wouldn't leave her daughters penniless. She hid the cipher in plain sight, didn't she? In the words she taught you.”
“I don't know what you’re talking about!” I pleaded, tears of frustration stinging my eyes. “They’re just recipes!”
“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” Vance said, his voice dropping all pretense of warmth. He gestured to his guard, who aimed his rifle directly at Roman’s head. “Tell me how to read the cards, Maeve, or I put a bullet through Mr. Falcone’s brain right here. Then I go to Boston General and visit your darling little sister.”
A cold rage ignited inside my chest. All my life, people with power had pushed my family around—landlords, hospital billing departments, and now a corrupt mob accountant.
“Don't touch my sister,” I growled, taking a confident step out from behind Roman.
“Maeve, no,” Roman warned softly.
“Shut up, Roman,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on Vance. “He wants the cipher? I’ll give him the cipher.”
Vance smirked, holding out the box. “Smart girl. Speak.”
“The cipher isn't in the ingredients,” I said slowly, moving toward the edge of the catwalk, drawing Vance’s attention entirely to me. “It’s in the margins. My mother always wrote a date at the bottom of every card—the day she first cooked the dish for someone she loved.”
Vance frowned, flipping over the card for the skillet potatoes. “A date? There’s no date here—just numbers! 10-24-99!”
“That’s not a date, you idiot,” I said, stepping even closer. “That’s an offshore routing coordinate.”
Vance lowered his gaze to look at the card, distracted for a single fraction of a second.
“Now!” Roman roared.
In one fluid, terrifying movement, Roman drew his pistol and fired two rapid shots, taking down the two mercenaries on the left. At the exact same instant, the subterranean cavern’s heavy sea doors exploded inward with a deafening crash!
A high-powered military speed boat burst through the opening, spray flying everywhere. Declan was at the helm, while Gabriel stood on the bow, firing an automatic weapon up at the catwalk!
The cavern erupted into chaos. Muzzle flashes illuminated the dark stone walls like strobe lights. Vance shrieked in terror, dropping the recipe box as he scrambled back up the catwalk stairs.
The tarnished metal tin bounced off the iron railing, spilling handwritten cards into the air. They drifted down toward the churning, dark ocean water below.
“The box!” I screamed, reaching out desperately as the cards fell.
Roman grabbed my waist, hauling me back just as a stray bullet ricocheted off the steel beam where I had been standing. “Forget the box!” he shouted over the gunfire.
“No! It’s all I have left of her!”
May you like
Before Roman could stop me, I lunged over the lower wooden dock, reaching out to catch the metal tin as it fell. My hand clamped around the cold brass box, but my momentum carried me too far over the edge.
I fell straight into the freezing, turbulent waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
