Chapter 3 - The Ghost from Cleveland
The physical therapy started at 7:00 AM.
A stern-faced physical therapist named Marcus, who looked like a retired Marine drill instructor, put me through hell for forty-five minutes. Every twist of my torso sent electric shocks through my ribs where the lead fragments sat near my chest wall. By the time he left, I was drenched in sweat, gasping for breath against the pillows.
Enzo appeared ten minutes later, carrying a heavy leather briefcase and a heavy ceramic mug of black coffee. He set them on the bedside table and gave me a cautious, respectful nod.
“Boss is tied up with the Jersey captains,” Enzo said, his gravelly voice echoing in the quiet room. “He sent me to brief you on the Costa situation. And… to give you this.”
He unlocked the briefcase with a small brass key and pulled out a thick manila folder labeled E. Vance – Confidential. He placed it across my lap.
My fingers trembled as I opened the cover. Inside were glossy 8x10 surveillance photographs, bank statements, medical bills from Cleveland, and a detailed typed report outlining every apartment I had rented, every job I had worked since I was nineteen, and—most disturbingly—a photograph of me standing outside a diner in downtown Cleveland taken exactly eighteen months ago.
Dominic was standing across the street in the reflection of a glass window, half-hidden behind a black umbrella.
“Why?” I whispered, my heart hammering against the seven bullets in my chest. “Why was he watching me a year and a half ago? I’ve never even been to New York before last month.”
Enzo rubbed the jagged scar running along his jawline, looking thoroughly uncomfortable. “Boss isn't a man who likes coincidences, Elena. When his father died, our intelligence network expanded nationwide. We were tracking financial leaks tied to a laundering front in Ohio. That diner where you worked? It was owned by a front company affiliated with Victor Costa’s inner circle.”
I stared at him, my breath catching. “I was just a waitress.”
“You were working three jobs to pay off your mother’s medical debt,” Enzo corrected gently. “And one of your coworkers was quietly funneling skimming money through the register for Costa’s crew. You didn't know about it. But Dominic’s analysts flagged your name because your social security number was accidentally tied to the LLC lease.”
“So he investigated me.”
“He watched you,” Enzo corrected. “For three weeks, he watched you carry your mother’s groceries, work sixteen-hour shifts, and refuse every shortcut offered by the local mobsters who tried to muscle in on your diner. Dominic doesn’t trust anyone. But by the end of that month, he stopped looking at your financial file and started looking at you.”
I felt a cold shiver crawl down my spine. “And when I moved to New York last month to take that hotel job… was that an accident?”
Enzo didn’t answer immediately. He looked down at the carpet, shifting his weight.
May you like
“Let’s just say,” Enzo muttered, “that the Aster Crown Hotel recently added a new corporate benefactor to its board of directors. A holding company managed by Rossi Enterprises. When catering assignments were handed out for the charity gala, your name wasn't placed on that schedule by random chance.”
The room seemed to tilt. The gold ring on my finger suddenly felt like an iron shackle, binding me to a man who had engineered my entire life from the shadows long before a single bullet pierced my skin.
