Chapter 2 - The Ghosts of the Navy Yard
The rest of the day passed in a blur of terrifying anxiety. Brier worked her shift at the tailor shop with shaking hands, repeatedly pricking her fingers with the heavy iron needles. Every time a car slowed down outside the storefront window, her heart leaped into her throat.
Brutus lay under the garment rack, but he wasn't sleeping. His dark eyes remained fixed on the front glass door, his ears constantly twitching at every passing footstep.
By the time Brier collected Posie from school at two o'clock, her mind was racing through every option available to her. Go to the police? The Moretti family owned half the precinct captains in the city. Run? With what money? She had eighty-four dollars in her checking account and forty-two dollars in cash inside a coffee tin at home. They wouldn't make it to the state line before Moretti’s men tracked her down.
"Mommy?" Posie’s voice broke through Brier’s spiraling thoughts as they reached their third-floor apartment. "Are you okay? You’re holding the handles really tight."
Brier forced a smile, exhaling slowly. "I'm okay, baby. Just tired. Let's get you inside."
Inside the small apartment, Brutus immediately performed his afternoon ritual. He shoved the hallway rug aside, pushed Posie's bedroom door fully open, and checked every corner of the room before allowing Brier to roll the wheelchair inside.
Once Posie was settled at her little wooden desk doing her coloring books, Brier went to the tiny closet in her own bedroom. She dragged out a heavy metal footlocker that belonged to her late father, an army veteran. She unlocked it with a small key kept around her neck.
Beneath old uniforms and photo albums lay a thick canvas envelope wrapped in heavy duct tape.
Brier took a deep breath. She hadn't opened this envelope in six years.
When her Uncle Tony Falco was gunned down in his restaurant six years ago, Brier had gone to clean out his personal apartment before the police sealed it. In the floorboards behind his closet, she had found this envelope addressed to her, with a simple handwritten note: For Posie’s future if things go bad.
At the time, Brier was pregnant, terrified, and abandoned by Posie’s father. She had kept the envelope hidden, assuming it contained savings or bonds. But when she had opened it back then, she realized it contained something far more dangerous: encrypted ledgers, safe deposit keys, and a USB drive containing decades of evidence detailing the Moretti family's entire empire—extortion, murder, and high-level political corruption.
It was an insurance policy. Uncle Tony had meant for her to use it as leverage if the mafia ever came after his remaining family. But Brier had been too frightened to touch it, hiding it away and choosing instead to work eighteen-hour days to keep Posie safe in obscurity.
"They found us anyway," Brier whispered to the dark closet.
Suddenly, Brutus dropped to all fours in the hallway. A low, sharp growl erupted from his throat.
Brier’s heart stopped. She quickly shoved the envelope into her purse, locked the footlocker, and ran into the living room.
Outside, the sun had set, casting long, bruised shadows across Clearfield Street. The flicking fluorescent bulb in the kitchen gave a final pop and died completely, plunging the apartment into near-total darkness, illuminated only by the gray streetlight spilling through the narrow window.
Down on the street, two dark SUVs had pulled up across the curb, blocking the apartment entrance. Four men in dark coats stepped out, moving toward the building's front door with deliberate, practiced efficiency.
They weren't waiting forty-eight hours. Julian Vance had lied.
"Posie!" Brier rushed into her daughter's room, her voice trembling despite her best efforts. "We have to go. Right now."
Posie looked up, her gray-blue eyes widening as she sensed the sudden panic in the air. "Mommy? What about my books?"
"Leave them, baby," Brier said, her hands moving frantically to unlock the wheelchair's brakes. "We’re going on a trip."
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Brutus stepped into the doorway, blocking the exit. He didn't look at Brier or Posie; his eyes were glued to the apartment’s front door. Down the hallway, three flights below, the loud sound of the heavy wooden front entrance being kicked open echoed up the stairwell.
Heavy, fast footsteps began echoing up the concrete steps.
