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I slammed Graham against the wall. It shouldn’t have felt as good as it did, but I was in no mood to pull back.
It wasn’t Vince flashing through my mind as I roughed Graham up; it was every memory of him making a pass at Ariana.
That and the fact that he was a rat.
Smelled like one, too.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear.” He dipped his head, his frantic eyes searching for an escape, but there was none.
We stood on the roof of his apartment building, twenty-three stories into the air. I had a height, weight, and muscle advantage on him. He stood no chance.
“Don’t make me ask you again.”
Every Romano in New York had scoured the city looking for Uncle Vince over the past ten days.
We had Romano members searching the entire city, and the bosses of every syndicate except the Andretti syndicate had agreed to perform their own searches in their respective territories.
All empty.
People disappeared, sure, but a mafia caporegime didn’t. Especially one for the Romano family.
“Please,” Graham begged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know where your uncle is. Why would you think I know?”
I looked at him.
Really looked at him.
I wanted him to be the one who’d taken him, so I could retaliate with my fists. But I believed him. I believed the fucking rat. I let go of him, and he dropped to the floor like panties on a stripper.
After zip tying him to a pipe, I left for Vincent’s brownstone. We’d searched the place, but something felt off. Vincent was the best of us.
He just wouldn’t go missing. Not without leaving some breadcrumbs at the very least.
Vince’s security team, some of the Black Security guards, and Gio searched the brownstone, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself here. It made his disappearance real.
I felt his absence every day, but seeing it in the form of his empty house haunted me.
Letting myself in, I searched every inch. Beneath the pillows.
The mattress. The bathroom. The vents.
Everything.
And when I didn’t find anything, I tore the house apart again, flipping every vase upside down, emptying out his fridge, opening his couch cushions, and checking the water tank of the toilets.
There, in the water tank, was a file sealed in a waterproof Ziploc bag. I pulled it out of the water, shook off the droplets, and pulled out the file.
It had Graham’s name written on the tab.
I opened it. Drops of water flung at my face, but I ignored them as I skimmed over the file.
A background check. A de-pixelated copy of the image I’d sent Gio for rendering. The receipt to the burner phone, which was bought a block away from Vince’s house.
I read the rest of the file, checked the dates, then read it again.
I fired a text to one of Asher’s men to cut Graham loose and deal with him.
Fuck.
