Chapter 2 - The Fortress and the Safe
Dr. Moretti arrived twenty minutes later carrying a worn black medical bag and smelling of antiseptic and rain.
He was a private physician who asked no questions and made no police reports because Matteo owned his clinic's mortgage.
He applied a cold numbing gel to my throat and taped my cracked fifth rib with professional silence.
"Two ribs bruised, one with a hairline fracture, soft tissue trauma consistent with manual strangulation," Dr. Moretti reported quietly to Matteo.
Matteo stood by the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the yellow cabs crawl like beetles along Fifth Avenue below.
He held a silver lighter in his hand, flicking the flame on and off with a steady, rhythmic click.
"Give her the strongest non-narcotic pain relief you have," Matteo ordered without turning around.
"I don't want her judgment clouded when she takes his world apart."
Dr. Moretti handed me two small white bottles and packed his instruments without another word.
When the doctor left, Lorenzo re-entered, holding a manila folder filled with printed surveillance dossiers and tax records.
"Bradley Harrison Jenkins, thirty-four years old," Lorenzo announced, opening the file.
"Vice President of Asset Management at Vanguard Crest Financial."
"His older brother is Captain Harrison Jenkins over at the NYPD Nineteenth Precinct."
"That is why no police precinct has ever filed a single domestic incident report from that Brooklyn brownstone."
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit of cold nausea.
"You see?" I said, clutching the arms of the leather armchair Dr. Moretti had placed me in.
"His brother protects him."
"Harrison has buried three calls to dispatch over the last two years."
"If I go to the authorities, Harrison makes the complaint disappear and Bradley punishes me for making noise."
Matteo turned around slowly from the window.
The silver lighter clicked shut with a sharp, metallic snap.
"The NYPD does not run this island, Alexandra," Matteo said, walking toward me.
"And a captain's badge will not stop a freight train."
"You don't understand," I argued, my voice shaking with raw exhaustion.
"I left everything in that brownstone."
"My mother’s pearl necklace, the only heirloom she left me before she died of cancer, is locked inside his biometric wall safe."
"Bradley calls it his insurance policy."
"He told me that if I ever leave, he will throw the necklace into the East River and tell the precinct I embezzled cash from his accounts."
Matteo paused, his eyes narrowing into cold calculation.
"He keeps an heirloom hostage?"
"Yes."
"And the brownstone lease?"
"It is in both our names, but the monthly wire comes out of my personal salary account."
"The Mercedes parked in the underground garage?"
"His name is on the title, but I pay the financing note every month from my DeLuca bonus."
Matteo let out a short, humorless laugh that sent shivers down my spine.
"A thief pretending to be a banker."
"A parasite wearing an Italian suit purchased with your blood."
Matteo looked at Lorenzo.
"Bring three black Suburbans to the basement garage."
"We are going to Brooklyn to collect my accountant’s personal effects."
Panic flared white-hot in my chest.
I tried to stand up, but the pain in my ribs forced me back into the cushions.
"No, please, Matteo, you can't go there."
"Bradley will call his brother."
"There will be a shootout on the street, and my name will be in the papers, and my career will be ruined."
Matteo stepped forward and stopped right before my chair.
For the second time that morning, he knelt on one knee until his gaze met mine directly.
"Do you believe I built a multi-billion-dollar empire by having shootouts on brownstone sidewalks, Alexandra?"
I stared into his dark, unblinking eyes, paralyzed by his proximity.
"I do not break glass when I can pick the lock," he said, his voice dropping into a velvet purr.
"We are not going there to make a scene."
"We are going there to show Mr. Jenkins that the woman he kicked across the floor is now backed by an army he cannot afford to fight."
"And the safe?" I whispered.
Matteo reached into his pocket and pulled out a small titanium bypass device no larger than a credit card.
"My locksmiths designed the security systems for the Federal Reserve."
"No residential safe in North America can resist my team for more than sixty seconds."
He extended his hand toward me, palm upward.
It was not an order.
It was an invitation to step off the ledge of my victimhood and into his shadow.
I looked at his scarred, steady hand.
May you like
Then I looked at the purple fingerprint bruised into my own wrist.
Slowly, with my whole body shaking from a terrifying mixture of dread and vengeance, I placed my hand in his.
