Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Registry
By sunrise, the brownstone felt less like a home and more like a staging ground.
Kieran Marlo arrived at 6:30 AM, letting himself in with a master key that jangled softly against his heavy key ring. Kieran was sixty, with silver hair, sharp gray eyes, and a wardrobe that made him look like a retired Wall Street banker rather than the man who managed the cash flow for the entire East Coast syndicate.
He found me in the kitchen, pouring black coffee into a heavy ceramic mug.
"Boss tells me there’s a complication," Kieran said without preamble, pulling out a chair at the butcher-block island and sitting down. He didn't look panicked; men who had survived thirty years of federal racketeering investigations didn't panic over domestic disputes. They calculated margins.
"The complication is that someone is selling our portfolio out from under us using my legal identity," I said, sliding a printed copy of the Delaware filing across the counter toward him.
Kieran adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, scanned the first two paragraphs, and let out a low whistle through his teeth.
"Well," he murmured. "That’s clean. The notary stamp is a forgery, of course, but the digital signature matches the master key we lodged with the county clerk back in '19."
"A master key that only two people possess," I noted, leaning against the counter. "Me. And the corporate secretary who manages our legal filings."
Kieran looked up slowly, his gray eyes sharpening. "Who is the corporate secretary, Molly?"
"Joanna Ricci."
Kieran didn't flinch. Instead, he reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a silver metal case, and extracted a slim cigarillo, tapping it against his thumb. "She’s ambitious, I’ll give her that. Most people who try to climb into this machine don't realize the gears have teeth until they're already ground down to bone."
"She’s not just climbing, Kieran," I said. "She’s building a parallel structure. If those terminals shift to the Delaware holding company before the federal audit closes next month, the Barone family won't just lose the ports—they’ll lose their immunity waivers. Every federal prosecutor from here to D.C. will be able to seize our personal accounts under RICO."
Gianni walked into the kitchen just then, shaved, dressed in a fresh charcoal suit, but looking as if he hadn't slept a wink. He stopped when he saw Kieran and me examining the documents together.
"You shouldn't be dragging Kieran into this," Gianni said, his jaw tightening. "This is a family matter."
"This isn't a family matter anymore, Gianni," I said, turning to face him fully. "This is an existential threat. And since your brilliant strategy involved handing my best friend the keys to our empire while you were busy playing Don Corleone at the country club, I am taking over the negotiations."
Gianni stepped forward, his imposing frame blocking the doorway. "Molly, no. You stay here. I’ll handle Joanna. I’ll deal with the holding company—"
"You've had six months to notice that your corporate secretary was liquidating your assets behind your back, and you didn't see a damn thing," I interrupted, my voice cutting through his objections like a scalpel. "You think she's just a smart girl helping with logistics? She’s been sitting in my kitchen, eating my food, listening to me talk about my childhood, while she figured out how to drain every bank account tied to my maiden name."
I stepped past him, my shoulder brushing his chest, and picked up my coat from the back of the chair.
May you like
"Where are you going?" Gianni demanded, spinning around to follow me toward the hall.
"To brunch," I said smoothly, sliding my arms into the sleeves of my wool coat. "Joanna invited me. She sent a text at six o'clock this morning. She wants to catch up over pastries at the Rittenhouse Hotel."
