Chapter 3 - The Interrogation of Elena VanceTen minutes later, the heavy oak doors of the third-floor study swung open again. Two guards escorted Elena Vance into the room.
The young woman looked smaller than she had in the kitchen. Her oversized cotton apron had been removed, leaving her in a simple gray sweater and worn jeans. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she was shaking so badly her teeth clicked together audibly.
“Sit,” Dominic commanded, pointing to a straight-backed leather chair in the center of the room.
Elena dropped into the chair, wrapping her arms tightly around herself as if trying to hold her skeleton together.
Dominic didn’t sit behind his desk. Instead, he stepped out from the shadows, leaning against the edge of the mahogany table just three feet away from her. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't threaten her with physical violence. The sheer, crushing weight of his reputation was enough.
“Elena,” Dominic began softly. “Let’s skip the part where you lie to me and tell me you’re just an innocent orphan trying to make rent in New York City. We both know that’s a fairy tale.”
Elena swallowed hard, her throat working convulsively. “I... I needed the job. Rosa didn't check deep enough because she was desperate. I forged the references.”
“Why?”
“Because... because I needed to get inside this house.”
Vincent’s hand instantly moved to his holster, but Dominic raised a single finger, freezing him in place.
“Who sent you?” Dominic asked. “Was it a remnant of the Mendoza cartel? Did someone buy you out of a debt?”
“No!” Elena blurted out, tears finally spilling over her lashes. “I don’t know anything about cartels! I swear to God! I’m just a courier!”
Dominic leaned in closer, his face inches from hers. “A courier for whom?”
“I don’t know his name!” she sobbed, pulling a crumpled, cheap burner phone out of her back pocket and tossing it onto the desk. “He gave me five thousand dollars cash in an envelope at a diner in Astoria three weeks ago. He told me to get hired here, clean the third-floor guest suites, and look for one specific thing.”
Vincent stepped forward, picking up the burner phone with a gloved hand and tossing it onto a digital scanning pad on the corner desk.
“What thing?” Dominic asked, his voice dead flat.
“A small, leather-bound journal,” Elena whispered, staring at the floor. “He said Mr. Russo kept it locked in the bottom drawer of his nightstand. He said... he said it contained the records of the warehouse payoff from fourteen months ago—the night Mrs. Russo died.”
The study went dead silent. The hum of the air purifier suddenly sounded deafening.
Dominic straightened up slowly. His mind raced through every drawer, every safe, every secure server he owned.
“I don’t keep a journal,” Dominic said quietly.
“The man who hired me said you did,” Elena insisted, looking up with genuine terror in her eyes. “He said Dominic Russo writes down everything—every deal, every bribe, every name. He said the night Mrs. Russo was killed wasn’t a random cartel hit. He said... he said you knew the ambush was coming, and you used your own family as bait to flush out a traitor within the syndicate.”
Dominic felt the room tilt on its axis.
For a fraction of a second, the floor seemed to drop away beneath his feet. He remembered that rainy Tuesday afternoon fourteen months ago. He remembered receiving an encrypted alert on his satellite phone warning of a coordinated hit on his motorcade. He remembered dispatching his decoy vehicles toward the financial district while Isabella took the girls to her mother’s house in Queens by an alternate route—a route he had personally cleared with his security team twenty minutes earlier.
Except... the route had been changed at the last second.
By whom?
By Arthur Voss.
Arthur was the only other man who had access to the real-time convoy schedule.
“Get out,” Dominic said.
Elena blinked, stunned. “W-What?”
“Vincent,” Dominic commanded without turning around. “Take her down to the gate. Give her twenty thousand dollars in cash, put her on the first train out of New York, and make sure she disappears permanently. If she ever comes within fifty miles of this estate again, bury her.”
“Boss—” Vincent started to protest.
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“Do it!” Dominic roared, the pent-up fury finally breaking through his iron control.
Vincent grabbed Elena by the arm, hauling her out of the chair and dragging her toward the door before she could process her own survival. The heavy doors slammed shut, leaving Dominic alone in the dark, suffocating quiet of his study.
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