Chapter 2 - The Man With the Snake Tattoo
By six the next morning, we had his face.
New York was covered in cameras.
Traffic cameras.
Hotel cameras.
Doorbell cameras.
Parking garage cameras.
People complained about surveillance until the day they needed it.
That morning, I needed it.
Marco and three members of my security team reconstructed Emma’s final forty minutes before the attack.
At 11:28 p.m., she left my mansion carrying a cheap umbrella.
At 11:34, she bought coffee from a corner shop.
At 11:39, she turned west.
At 11:43, two men began following her.
They had not stepped from an alley by coincidence.
They had been waiting.
That distinction mattered.
“Freeze it,” I said.
Marco stopped the footage.
One attacker had turned toward the camera.
His face was clear.
Mid-thirties.
Shaved head.
Heavy jaw.
And when he reached for Emma, his sleeve moved.
A black serpent curled around his wrist.
Marco enlarged the image.
“Anton Volkov.”
“You know him?”
“Kolov’s collector.”
I leaned back.
“Collector?”
“Protection money. Debts. Intimidation.”
“And the other?”
“Dmitri Sokolov. Lower level.”
Marco switched screens.
Anton and Dmitri climbed into a dark SUV after attacking Emma.
We followed it across Manhattan through camera after camera until it disappeared into an underground garage beneath an upscale apartment building.
“Kolov property?” I asked.
Marco shook his head.
“That’s the interesting part.”
He put a document in front of me.
The building belonged to a holding company.
That holding company belonged to another company.
Three corporate layers later, we reached the real owner.
Daniel Mercer.
I recognized the name immediately.
Mercer was not a gangster.
He was a real estate developer.
Charity galas.
Magazine covers.
City contracts.
The kind of man who shook hands with politicians and donated hospital wings.
“What does Mercer have to do with Kolov?”
“We’re finding out.”
My phone rang.
Lucia.
I answered immediately.
“How is she?”
“Awake.”
Relief hit harder than expected.
“Doctor says concussion, cracked ribs, stitches. Nothing life-threatening.”
“And her family?”
“I haven’t told them yet.”
“I’ll handle it.”
There was a pause.
“Dominic, Emma keeps asking whether she still has a job.”
I closed my eyes.
“She thinks I’m going to fire her?”
“She’s worried about missing shifts.”
“Tell her she’s being paid.”
“For how long?”
“Until she’s recovered.”
Another pause.
“And the hospital?”
“Paid.”
“Her mother’s treatment?”
I looked through the glass doors of my study toward the empty foyer.
“Paid.”
Lucia became quiet.
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“You know she’ll refuse.”
“Then don’t ask.”
Lucia laughed softly despite everything.
“You’re impossible.”
“Keep me updated.”
I ended the call.
Marco was watching me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then stop smiling.”
“I’m not smiling.”
“You are.”
He turned back to the monitors.
By afternoon, Anton Volkov emerged from Mercer’s building.
We followed.
Not physically.
That was too obvious.
We used cameras, contacts, and vehicles switched at intervals.
Anton visited a warehouse in Brooklyn.
Then a Russian restaurant.
Then an auto repair shop.
Finally, shortly before eight, he drove to a private club in Queens.
Marco placed photographs on my desk.
Viktor Kolov arrived twenty minutes later.
Daniel Mercer arrived nine minutes after him.
That was enough to interest me.
But then a fourth man appeared.
Marco put down the photograph.
I stared at it.
“Who is he?”
“Thomas Vale.”
The name meant nothing.
Marco continued.
“Senior investigator with the city’s Organized Crime Task Force.”
Now the room became quiet.
A gangster.
A developer.
A law enforcement investigator.
Meeting privately.
That wasn’t business.
That was infrastructure.
“What are they building?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Find out.”
The answer came sooner than expected.
At 9:17 p.m., Lucia called again.
Her voice was different.
“Dominic.”
“What happened?”
“Someone came to Emma’s room.”
I stood immediately.
“Who?”
“He said he was hospital administration.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“And?”
“He wasn’t.”
“Where is he?”
“Security stopped him because Marco’s men checked his ID.”
“What did he want?”
Lucia lowered her voice.
“He had Emma’s home address.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Move Margaret and Noah.”
“Where?”
“My house.”
“Dominic—”
“Now.”
I hung up.
Marco was already moving.
Twenty minutes later, two armored vehicles headed toward Queens.
I went with them.
Emma’s mother lived in a narrow apartment building above a laundromat.
When Margaret Carter opened the door, she looked exhausted and frightened.
She was thin from treatment, with a scarf covering her head.
Beside her sat Noah.
Nineteen years old.
Wheelchair.
Both legs gone above the knee.
He looked at me with immediate suspicion.
“You’re Castellano.”
“Yes.”
“My sister works for you.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
Nobody had told them yet.
Margaret’s face went white.
I hated what came next.
But they deserved the truth.
“Emma was attacked last night.”
Her mother grabbed the doorway.
Noah’s expression changed.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Hospital. She’s stable.”
Margaret began crying.
Noah didn’t.
He looked directly at me.
“Was it because of you?”
Marco shifted beside me.
I raised one hand.
The question was fair.
“Yes.”
Margaret stared at me.
Noah’s jaw tightened.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because the people responsible may come looking for you.”
Margaret looked terrified.
I continued.
“I have somewhere safe.”
Noah laughed bitterly.
“Your mansion?”
“Yes.”
“You expect us to trust you?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
“I expect you to protect Emma by staying alive.”
Silence.
Then Margaret whispered, “Take us to her first.”
So we did.
Emma cried when she saw them.
Margaret cried harder.
Noah rolled his wheelchair beside the bed and tried to pretend he wasn’t crying at all.
I remained outside.
It was not my moment.
Lucia joined me.
“You did this.”
“What?”
“Brought them.”
“They needed protection.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I looked at her.
She nodded toward the room.
“You care about her.”
“She works for us.”
Lucia gave me the look only sisters can give when their brothers are lying badly.
Before she could answer, Marco approached.
“Boss.”
His expression told me something had happened.
“What?”
“We found what Kolov and Mercer are working on.”
He handed me a folder.
Inside were maps.
Property records.
Bank transfers.
Construction plans.
Dozens of apartment buildings across three neighborhoods had been quietly purchased through shell companies.
Families were being pressured to leave.
Businesses were being threatened.
Fires had occurred in two buildings whose owners refused to sell.
Mercer wanted the land.
Kolov supplied the fear.
Vale made complaints disappear.
But one address stood out.
I stared at it.
Then looked through the hospital window at Emma.
Her mother’s apartment building.
Marco nodded.
“They’ve been trying to buy it for six months.”
I felt the pieces click together.
Emma’s attack had not only been a message to me.
She had accidentally become connected to something much larger.
And if Kolov discovered that her family was one of the last holdouts standing between him and a fortune—
Emma wasn’t merely a warning anymore.
She was leverage.
Then Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face hardened.
“What?”
He looked at me.
May you like
“Boss, Margaret Carter’s apartment building is on fire.”
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