Chapter 2 - The Wire Transfer of Trenton
The titanium shutters locked down against the Atlantic gale with the sound of a falling guillotine.
Captain Douglas Miller stood stranded on the marble rug, his tactical shotgun slipping an inch in his sweating grip. The four state troopers behind him shifted their boots through the pools of spilled cognac, their eyes darting wildly across the reinforced ceiling bulkheads where eight automated defensive turrets hummed to life, their red targeting sensors tracking the troopers' tactical vests.
“You’re bluffing, Santoro,” Miller snarled, though the flush of color in his leathery cheeks had turned the mottled shade of curdled lard. “The Department of Justice has forty agents stationed in the ground-floor casino! If we don’t clear this elevator bank in ten minutes, they’ll breach the tower with hydraulic rams!”
Marco Santoro did not raise his voice. He did not pull the hand from his pocket.
He walked past the dining table with slow, deliberate strides, stopping two feet from where I stood shaking against the wall tapestry.
Without a word, Marco reached down, shrugged off his bespoke three-piece suit jacket of charcoal Italian wool, and draped it gently across my shoulders. The heavy fabric was warm, smelling of bay rum, cedarwood, and rich tobacco. It fell past my knees, covering the wet red map of agony soaked into my torn uniform, shielding the open lacerations on my spine from the freezing draft of the air conditioning.
His gloved fingers reached up, carefully lifting the hair matted with blood from my swollen cheekbone, his touch light as thistledown against my ruined eye.
“Did you sew that gauze on your arm yourself, Clara?” he asked, his baritone rough with an undercurrent of barely suppressed slaughter.
“No, Mr. Santoro,” I whispered through my split lip. “The security guard slapped it on... so I wouldn't bleed on the velvet chairs.”
Marco’s jaw tightened until the tendons stood out like iron rebar along his throat.
He turned his head slowly toward Captain Miller.
“The four federal agents downstairs are currently sitting in zip-ties inside my underground security suite, Captain,” Marco murmured. “They were disarmed thirty minutes ago by my waterfront captains. And their leader, Agent Hayes, was very eager to explain how four million dollars from the Trenton armored heist ended up in an escrow account in Grand Cayman registered under your sister’s maiden name.”
Miller’s face went chalk-white. His throat clicked as he tried to swallow.
Marco tapped the touch-screen panel mounted on the mahogany pillar beside him.
The four-split display above the hearth shifted:
The first screen showed the underground casino garage.
The audio technician was handcuffed to a concrete pillar, surrounded by six of Marco’s armored enforcers. Sitting on the hood of an idling black SUV was his open laptop, displaying the completed digital frequency logs and a scanned copy of an offshore wire confirmation:
SENDER: ROSSI LOGISTICS HOLDINGS.
BENEFICIARY: DOUGLAS MILLER TRUST.
AMOUNT: $2,500,000 USD.
MEMO: TRENTON RECOVERY / CASINO RE-LICENSING.
The second screen displayed the private suite of the state gaming commissioner.
The elderly regulator was sitting on his bed in silk pajamas, weeping openly, flanked by two of Marco’s lieutenants who were packing forty-eight leather-bound financial ledgers into federal evidence bags.
And the third screen showed the master security vault behind the counting room, where Veronica’s father, Don Salvatore Rossi, was currently being escorted out of a luxury elevator in heavy steel transport cuffs.
The thirty guests seated around the marble table scrambled backward out of their seats, knocking over crystal carafes and crystal dessert plates to put distance between themselves and the Rossi family.
Veronica backed against the sideboard, her three-carat diamond earrings shivering violently, her fingers clawing at the crimson velvet of her gown.
“Marco... darling... please!” Veronica shrieked, her voice pitching into a shrill, hysterical whine. “Miller threatened us! He said if we didn’t provide the digital confession, he would revoke our family's liquor licenses! My father was trying to save our business!”
Marco turned around to face his bride-to-be.
His pale gray eyes were completely vacant of human warmth.
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“Your father didn't try to save a business, Veronica,” Marco said, each word falling like lead into the room. “He hired the mercenaries who shot those three armored guards in the head outside Trenton. And you used broken glass on my servant's back because she wouldn't let you frame me for the slaughter.”
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