Chapter 4 - The Rot in the Syndicate
Back in New York, the sun had not brought light, only a dirty, yellow haze that hung over the industrial canals of Queens.
The Shaw syndicate’s primary operations hub was not the penthouse or the estate; it was an unassuming cinderblock building behind a scrap-metal yard in Maspeth. Here, the true business was conducted: the tallying of shipping containers, the protection payouts from three hundred construction firms, and the coordination of the street captains who kept the Five Boroughs quiet.
Beckett had not slept in thirty-six hours.
His tuxedo was gone, replaced by a black wool sweater and a heavy leather coat, but he hadn't shaved. His eyes were veined with blood, his pupils wide and dark with stimulants and fury.
On the iron table in the center of the room lay three cell phones, two laptops, and a woman’s handbag made of beige Italian leather.
Taryn Vail sat in a metal folding chair against the wall. She was no longer wearing the ivory silk dress from the anniversary party. She had on an oversized gray tracksuit that Pierce had bought for her at a 24-hour pharmacy, and her face was blotchy from hours of crying.
Two armed guards stood at the exit. Pierce Rowan stood in the corner, his arms crossed over his chest, his face completely unreadable.
“I want the phone,” Beckett said. His voice was dangerously low, a rasping rumble that made the hair on the back of Pierce’s neck stand up.
“Beckett, I gave you my phone!” Taryn wept, pointing at the table. “You have it! You went through my text messages!”
“Not that one,” Beckett said, taking two slow steps toward her. The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. “The burner. The one you used from the restroom at the St. Regis three weeks ago, when you told Declan Cruz’s cousin that the north warehouse was moving its inventory on the fourteenth.”
Taryn’s breath hitched. She froze, her lower lip trembling violently. “I... I don't know what you’re talking about. Beckett, I love you! I came to you because I was terrified! You saw how your wife looked at me—she wanted to kill me!”
Beckett didn't raise his voice. He didn't lift his hand. He simply looked down at her with an expression so dead, so detached from human feeling, that Taryn shrank back until the metal chair scraped the concrete floor.
“My wife,” Beckett said, the words falling like lead weights, “spent sixteen years keeping me out of federal prison. She spent sixteen years making sure that when I walked into a room, the men inside were afraid of me, not laughing at me. You...” He reached down, took a handful of her hair, and pulled her face upward without a shred of roughness, just an inexorable, terrifying leverage. “You couldn't even keep a secret from an associate DA’s clerk in Manhattan.”
“Beckett—”
“Pierce,” Beckett said, not looking away from Taryn’s wide, terror-stricken eyes.
Pierce stepped forward, holding a printed sheaf of bank records.
“Declan Cruz deposited seventy-five thousand dollars into an offshore account in the Caymans under your sister’s maiden name four days ago, Taryn,” Pierce said flatly. “The transfer was cleared the morning of the anniversary gala. You were supposed to create a scene. You were supposed to make sure Beckett’s attention was locked on his domestic issues while Cruz’s trucks intercepted the convoy on the turnpike.”
Taryn began to sob hysterically, shaking her head. “He told me no one would get hurt! He said Beckett was losing his grip, that Laurel was the one running everything anyway! He said if Laurel was out of the picture, Beckett would rely on me!”
Beckett dropped her hair. He wiped his fingers on his trousers as if he had touched something decomposing in a ditch.
“Did you hear that, Pierce?” Beckett asked, his voice cracking with a bitter, hollow laugh. “Even Cruz knew.”
“Knew what, boss?”
“Who was running things.” Beckett turned toward the small window that looked out over the mountain of rusted car frames. “Cruz knew that if you take Laurel away from me, I’m just another thug with thirty guns and an ulcer. He knew she was the brain. He knew that without her, this whole machine grinds its gears into metal dust in ninety days.”
He turned back to Taryn.
“Get her out of my sight,” Beckett said.
Taryn scrambled to her feet, clutching her elbows. “Beckett, please! What are you going to do to me?”
“Nothing,” Beckett said, turning his back on her. “Cruz paid you. You’re his problem now. Pierce, drop her on Cruz’s doorstep in Jersey City. Let him know that the information she brought him was useless, because the convoy wasn't on the turnpike.”
Pierce paused. “Where was the convoy, boss?”
Beckett closed his eyes. The memory hit him like a physical blow to the chest: Laurel sitting at the mahogany desk in their study three weeks ago, calmly signing shipping authorizations while he poured himself another scotch.
*“I rerouted the shipments through the rail terminal in Albany,”* she had said, not even looking up. *“The turnpike has too many state toll cameras this time of year.”*
She had saved his empire while he was booking hotel rooms for a woman who was selling him out for seventy-five thousand dollars.
“ Albany,” Beckett whispered. “She already handled it. She handled it before she left.”
He opened his eyes. The rage was gone now, replaced by an agony so acute it made his ribs ache.
“Pierce,” Beckett said.
“Yeah, Beckett?”
“The blood on the car at Mile 40. The lab called back thirty minutes ago. It wasn't human.”
Pierce didn't seem surprised. “She set the trap.”
“She didn't just set a trap,” Beckett said, picking up his overcoat. “She gave me an out. She wanted Cruz to think he had her so he would overplay his hand, and she wanted me to look in the woods so she had twelve hours of clear road.”
“Where did she go, Beckett?”
May you like
Beckett reached into his pocket and pulled out the thin, scratched 94-dollar gold wedding band. He rolled it between his calloused thumb and forefinger.
“To the place she told me she’d go if the sky ever fell,” he said. “Pack the heavy gear. We’re going to Maine.”
