Chapter 7 - The Miami Run
By midnight, the Long Island mansion was sealed off by state troopers and federal agents.
Mrs. Donnelly had been removed in handcuffs, weeping hysterically as the press cameras flashed from the end of our long driveway. The news anchors were already calling it the scandal of the decade: Mob Boss’s Housekeeper Arrested in Connection with Wife’s Murder.
They didn't know about the coal bunker beneath the cellar. They didn't know about Pauly. And they weren't going to.
I left my lieutenant, Frankie "The Hammer" Corsetti, in charge of the estate’s security. Frankie was forty-five, built like a brick wall, and had been loyal to my father and me for twenty-five years. Most importantly, Frankie understood that Grace Bennett and my three daughters were now the most sacred objects on the East Coast.
“If a leaf falls off a tree near this house without you knowing about it, Frankie,” I told him on the porch, “I’ll come back from Florida and deal with you myself.”
“Nobody touches this house, Dom,” Frankie said, his hand resting firmly on his holstered weapon. “You go get the bastard.”
I took a private Learjet out of Republic Airport at 2:00 AM, accompanied by two of my sharpest men, Lorenzo and Carmine.
As the plane climbed over the dark Atlantic, I sat by the window staring at my phone screen. The wallpaper was a photo Grace had taken six hours earlier on her own phone and texted to me before I left: Olivia, Sophie, and Nora sitting in a row on the kitchen counter, eating bowls of chocolate ice cream, smiling.
Real smiles.
I stared at that photo until the coastline of Florida appeared through the dawn clouds.
At 7:00 AM, we pulled up to the Fort Lauderdale Marina in a rented black Suburban.
Jimmy Vane was forty-two, a low-level enforcer who had spent his career running errands for the Brooklyn crews before disappearing off the radar a year ago. According to Pauly’s description, Jimmy was living on a thirty-foot cabin cruiser named The Good Life, purchased with the fifty grand he had been paid for driving the hit car in Garden City.
The morning air smelled of saltwater, diesel fuel, and rotting fish.
We walked down Pier 4 without drawing weapons. Lorenzo kept watch near the bait shop; Carmine took the far end of the dock.
I walked up the wooden gangway of The Good Life and tapped on the cabin door.
“Yeah? Who is it?” a voice called out from below deck.
“Delivery from the harbormaster, Jimmy,” I said smoothly.
The latch clicked. The door opened three inches, revealing a pale, pockmarked face with bloodshot eyes and a greasy mustache.
May you like
Jimmy Vane took one look at my face, and his eyes expanded until the whites showed all around the pupils. He tried to slam the door shut.
I drove my shoulder into the wood, breaking the latch instantly.
