"Everyone Laughed When She Stepped Forward—Until the Mafia Boss Realized She Was Gifted

At 2:15 p.m., Marco returned to the mansion. His knuckles were bruised, and there was a streak of black machine grease across the cuff of his linen shirt, but his breath was steady.

“The boy is on the Gulfstream,” Marco reported, standing in Dante’s first-floor office. “The tailor and his daughter went with him. They'll land in Punta Raisi before sunrise.”

“Good,” Dante said, not looking up from Lily’s latest sketch.

On the desk lay a drawing of a Dodge Ram van. The grille had seven vertical slots. On the driver-side door, Lily had scrawled five numbers and two letters, rendered in thick, wobbly wax: *7-X-9-4-2-L-Y*. Above the roof, she had drawn a tiny black wire running into the rubber seal of the rear door.

“Run this plate,” Dante said, sliding the paper across the desk.

Marco picked up the drawing, his eyebrows drawing together as he recognized the handwriting of a child. He pulled his phone from his pocket, photographed the sheet, and dialed the private line to their contact at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Albany.

While Marco waited, Dante stood by the heavy velvet drapes of his front window, peering through a two-inch gap.

Two hundred yards down East 74th Street, parked half beneath the shadow of a brownstone scaffolding, sat the gray Dodge van. It was dusty, inconspicuous, bearing the faded logo of a plumbing contractor that had gone out of business six months prior. To any patrol officer or pedestrian, it was part of the urban background.

Marco lowered his phone. “The plates belong to an impounded vehicle sold at a city auction three weeks ago. The buyer was a shell corporation registered in Wilmington, Delaware. The corporate attorney of record is Anthony Vitucci.”

“Vitucci,” Dante repeated softly. “Victor’s brother-in-law.”

“They're listening right now,” Marco said, nodding toward the crystal ashtray on Dante’s desk.

The copper capsule still lay beneath the linen napkin. Dante had deliberately placed the ashtray near an old radio on the credenza, which had been playing an Italian classical station at low volume since noon.

“Let them listen,” Dante said. “Bring Elena down to the kitchen. Have the chef prepare a hot meal for her and the girl. Then bring Victor’s driver in.”

“Geno?” Marco asked. “Geno has been with Victor for twelve years.”

“Geno has three daughters at St. Agnes,” Dante said coldly. “And he likes to gamble on harness racing at Yonkers. He owes fifty thousand dollars to the loan sharks in Williamsburg. Tell him I will pay his debt and give him twenty thousand more if he forgets to check the oil in Victor’s town car tomorrow morning.”

“And if he refuses?”