Chapter 10 - The Ultimatum
The peace in the Park Avenue penthouse lasted exactly forty-eight hours before the real world hammered its way back through the glass. It was Sunday evening when Danny let himself into the foyer using his emergency security fob, his face pale and tight as he hurried down the hallway toward the kitchen where Cole and Nora were sitting with Sophia, who was busy drawing lopsided green trees with purple leaves on a pad of expensive bond paper.
Cole stood up immediately, stepping away from the table and gesturing for Danny to follow him into the private study before Nora could look up.
"What is it?" Cole asked, closing the heavy oak study door behind them with a muffled click.
"It’s not Santoro," Danny said, his voice dropping into an urgent whisper. "Santoro’s lawyers are already cutting deals with the federal prosecutor down at Foley Square, and his warehouse is locked down by the marshals. But that’s not why I’m here."
"Then spit it out, Danny."
"It’s the union," Danny said, wiping a hand across his forehead. "Specifically, the old guard from the Brooklyn docks who used to answer to Frank Marcone before you took over the territory back in two thousand and ten. They heard about you seizing Santoro’s Fourteenth Street property without bringing it before the syndicate council, and they’re calling it a hostile takeover of the entire regional distribution network."
Cole’s ice-blue eyes hardened into chips of glacial granite. "Marcone’s been retired in Boca Raton for six years playing golf with retired judges. His old boys don't have the stomach for a turf war."
"They don't need a turf war, boss," Danny replied grimly. "They’ve got leverage. They know about Nora Vega. Someone in the Mercer Street administrative office leaked her personnel file and her connection to your penthouse address to the union delegates yesterday afternoon."
Cole’s breath caught in his throat for a fraction of a second—the only sign of the seismic shock hitting his nervous system. "They know she’s here?"
"They know everything," Danny said. "They’re holding a meeting at an old social club on Mulberry Street at midnight tonight, and they sent a message through an intermediary. They want you to hand over the Fourteenth Street warehouse titles and step down as chairman of the Mercer distribution board by sunrise tomorrow. If you don't... they’ve got a team of men ready to pay a visit to Park Avenue while you’re out."
Cole stared at his enforcer, his brain calculating the tactical variables with the cold, lethal precision of a grandmaster seeing a trap close around his king. For seventeen years, his enemies had tried to attack him through his businesses, his money, and his associates, and he had crushed every single one of them without blinking. But now, for the first time in his life, he had something inside his perimeter that couldn't be replaced by a bank transfer or a new freight contract.
"Get the car ready," Cole said quietly, his voice dropping into that terrifying, flat register that meant someone was about to pay for a very expensive mistake.
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"Boss, you can't go down to Mulberry Street alone with those old-school enforcers," Danny protested. "Marcone’s boys are animals—they don't play by modern rules."
"I’m not going down there to negotiate, Danny," Cole said, reaching inside his jacket to check the weight of the heavy steel-framed pistol resting in his shoulder holster. "I’m going down there to explain to them why my perimeter is non-negotiable."
