Chapter 17 - The Shadow of the Syndicate
Matteo instantly pushed me behind his broad shoulder, his hand reflexively dropping to the holster beneath his tuxedo jacket.
"Explain," Matteo ordered, his voice cutting like a razor.
"Kane Street was supposed to be completely sanitized by the hazmat crew yesterday."
"It was, boss," Marco replied, stepping forward with a cracked black leather briefcase.
"The crew was tearing down the double walls in the master bedroom closet just like you ordered."
"They found a secondary vault behind the fireproofing insulation."
"Julian didn't have the technical expertise to install a secondary hidden safe," I said, stepping out from behind Matteo's protective frame.
"He could barely remember his own passwords."
"He didn't install it, Ms. Vance," Marco said, his gaze shifting to me with grim solemnity.
"The insignia on the safe lock wasn't Julian's."
Marco opened the briefcase, revealing a heavy slab of brass that had been torched from the wall.
Stamped into the center of the metal was a crest featuring two crossed anchors wrapped in barbed wire.
Matteo's breath caught in his throat, a reaction I had never seen from him before.
"The Castiglione syndicate," Matteo muttered, his voice laced with an ancient, bitter hatred.
"Who are they?" I asked, looking between the two men as the tension in the room skyrocketed.
"The old guard from Chicago," Matteo explained, his jaw clenching until the tendons in his neck strained.
"They controlled the East Coast ports before my father drove them out twenty years ago."
"Julian wasn't just laundering Arthur's kickbacks," Marco said, pulling out a stack of intercepted correspondence from the case.
"Julian was acting as an embedded mole for Dominic Castiglione."
"He was using Alexandra's forensic balance sheets to map out your entire financial architecture, boss."
I pressed a hand to my chest, the horror dawning on me in sickening waves.
"Julian didn't just beat me to control me," I realized aloud, my voice shaking with cold fury.
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"He was beating me to force me to audit Matteo's companies faster."
"He was handing my work directly to the men who want Matteo dead."
