Investigating the Shadows

*Cassius*

The little brass bell above the dry cleaner’s entrance chimed as I pushed the glass door open. The thick scent of chemical solvents, pressed starch, and hot steam hit my senses immediately. I gave a brief, dismissive wave to the front manager operating the register. He offered a tight nod, already knowing better than to speak. I walked straight past the racks of plastic-wrapped suits and dresses, heading directly for the heavy steel door situated at the very back of the shop.

I unlocked the deadbolt and stepped into my private office. The space was a stark contrast to the mundane storefront outside. Dark mahogany paneling lined the walls, and the low hum of soundproofing erased the noise of the street. Capo Di Stefano was already waiting for me.

He sat comfortably in one of the leather armchairs positioned in front of my desk, a crystal glass of scotch balanced in his hand. The ice clinked against the rim as he took a slow sip. He looked sharp, wearing a tailored dark blue suit that hugged his broad shoulders, paired with polished leather shoes that caught the dim overhead light. The deep navy fabric complemented his light brown eyes, while the heavy gold watch gripping his left wrist perfectly matched the sandy tone of his hair.

I rounded my desk and took a seat, expecting him to deliver immediate answers regarding Sloane Mercer.

Di Stefano set his glass down on a coaster. He let out a quiet sigh, adjusting his cuffs. "Valerius, I ran the search through our usual channels. I only found two girls within the state who fit your specific physical description. One is currently lying on a slab in the county morgue. The other is hooked up to a ventilator in a downtown hospital."

I leaned back, my jaw clenching. "Neither of them is her, Di Stefano. Though I do want you to figure out who put that second girl in the hospital and handle it. The girl I need you focusing on is a classmate of mine. She walks with a pronounced limp. Her face is covered in several deep, jagged scars. She is alive, and she is attending my university."

Di Stefano frowned, tapping a finger against the armrest. "If she’s walking around campus with scars that established... whatever trauma she endured had to have happened at least a year ago. The healing timeline fits. I can dig deeper into older local records. Can you give me a name? It will give my guys a solid starting point."

"Sloane Mercer," I stated, watching his reaction. "Malia gave us a tip. She thinks Sloane and her family might be in hiding."

Di Stefano’s eyebrows rose. I had clearly hooked his interest. "Sloane Mercer is an incredibly common name. But if they are actively hiding from someone, there is a strong chance she isn't originally from California. Do you have any trace on her point of origin?"

"I have Stavros running that angle right now," I told him, pouring my own measure of scotch into a clean glass. "Malia refused to say another word, so I told Stavros to crack into the university’s encrypted student database and pull her admissions file."

Di Stefano leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Do you think the people who did this belong to a rival family? A competing syndicate?"

I took a slow sip of the scotch, letting the burn coat my throat before answering. "Honestly, I don't know. But judging by the injuries I saw? This doesn't bear the signature of our world. The work is sloppy. It appears to be driven by raw, unadulterated hate rather than calculated retribution. There is zero art or professional skill in this attack."

I set my glass down, my voice dropping an octave. "I am certain of one thing, Di Stefano. Those scars, that limp... Sloane Mercer wasn't supposed to survive that night. They meant to leave a corpse."

Di Stefano’s eyes lit up with a dangerous gleam. "She’s a fighter, then," he murmured, his tone laced with dark admiration. "A survivor. Those are the exact type of women we need walking the halls of our organization. Think about it, Valerius. If I were you, I would bring her in right now. We can mold that trauma. We can train her. A girl with that much pain inside her has a bottomless drive for vengeance. She could become a lethal assassin."

I shook my head, rejecting the idea the second it left his mouth. "Dante would burn this city to the ground before he let that happen," I countered. "I wouldn't even be looking into Sloane Mercer if it weren't for him. He has a massive soft spot for her. I know for a fact he would never want her dragged into the violence of our world. In fact, I already promised him I would reach out to our syndicate's private surgeons."

Di Stefano blinked, surprised. "Surgeons?"

"We are going to help restore her face," I explained, leaning my elbows on the desk. "High-end plastic surgery and tissue restoration cost a fortune. I am guessing her family is struggling to keep a roof over their heads, let alone raise the capital needed to fix those scars. We are going to fund it secretly."

Before Di Stefano could argue, my burner phone buzzed against the wood of the desk. The caller ID read Stavros. I hit the speaker button.

"Stavros, talk to me," I demanded.

Di Stefano leaned over my desk, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Cassius, her file is a ghost town," Stavros's voice rushed through the speaker, breathless and pacing. "I couldn't find a single previous residential address. But I managed to dig up a birth certificate. She was born in North Dakota. A small, middle-of-nowhere town called Oak Haven."

"Did you make contact?"

"I called the local high school in that district," Stavros continued, speaking so fast I had to focus to catch every word. "I pretended to be an admissions officer verifying transcripts. The secretary confirmed they had a student named Sloane Mercer enrolled. But she claimed Sloane vanished right at the end of her junior year."

"Did you ask why she left so suddenly?" I pressed.

"I did," Stavros said, his tone turning grim. "The second I asked for details about her departure, the woman on the other end slammed the phone down. Total silence. Cassius, that school is actively covering something up. They are hiding her past."

"Good work, Stavros," I praised, my mind already spinning with the implications. "That gives us a geographic target. Start scrubbing the internet for any local news coverage regarding a violent assault in Oak Haven around that timeline. An attack that gruesome had to have generated police sirens and local headlines. Find the buried articles."

"Copy that. I'm on it." Stavros cut the line.

I looked up at Di Stefano. "You heard him."

"A small town in North Dakota called Oak Haven is sitting on a secret," Di Stefano murmured, rubbing his jaw. His expression shifted into something rigid and cold. "North Dakota. Valerius, do you realize who holds the territory out there? The ruling party of the Regional States Mafia in that sector is the Serpents of Midnight."

The name hung in the air like a foul stench.

"They are our most hated rival," Di Stefano continued, standing up and pacing a tight circle on the rug. "This just escalated into something far more dangerous. I will deploy my assets immediately. It will take heavy lifting to breach their territory unnoticed, but I will get you the intel on Sloane Mercer."

He stopped pacing and extended his right hand. I stood and met his grip, shaking it firmly.

"Valerius, this girl is a walking powder keg," Di Stefano warned, fixing his tie and straightening the lapels of his suit jacket. "I am telling you again. Bring her in. If she had a violent encounter with a Serpent of Midnight and lived to tell the tale, she is an invaluable asset. Her breathing existence is a weapon against them. Talk to Stavros and Dante. Rossi needs to wake up and realize she must learn how to defend herself before they come back to finish the job."

"I appreciate the candor," I replied, keeping my expression neutral. "I will pass your tactical suggestions on to the others. Thank you, Capo Di Stefano."

"I'll get my men moving on North Dakota right now," he promised, turning on his heel and exiting the office.

The moment the heavy steel door clicked shut, a restless, violent energy surged through my veins. The mention of the Serpents of Midnight made my skin crawl. I needed a physical release. I grabbed my gym bag from the corner and headed down to the underground training facility located beneath our syndicate's downtown warehouse.

The gym smelled of old leather, chalk, and stale sweat. I wrapped my hands in white athletic tape, pulling the strips tight across my knuckles until the circulation throbbed. I stepped up to the heavy leather punching bag suspended from a thick iron chain.

I threw a jab. The heavy thud echoed through the empty gym. Then a right cross. Then a brutal combination.

The chains rattled above me as I unleashed my pent-up tension on the leather. I needed to clear my head of everything except Sloane Mercer and the lethal chessboard we had just stepped onto.

The Serpents of Midnight were absolute scum. In the business of the underworld, they were erratic, greedy, and lacked any shred of honor. They had a filthy habit of executing their own dealers, drivers, and money mules just to avoid paying them. They even turned on their own investors and chemists. The Iron Syndicate and the North Shore Bone Crushers despised them, maintaining a strict embargo on any joint ventures.

I threw a vicious left hook. The bag groaned, swinging wildly.

I remembered the incident that sparked the current blood feud. One of our independent suppliers made a catastrophic logistical error, leaving a massive shipment of merchandise intended for the Serpents sitting unguarded at our western ports. The Serpents immediately accused us of hijacking their cargo.

My fist slammed into the leather again.

As a gesture of good faith to prevent an all-out war, our fathers—the reigning bosses of the Iron Syndicate on the West Shore—loaded the merchandise onto one of our private cargo vessels and shipped it directly to the Serpents' ports down in Texas. We expected a peaceful resolution. Instead, the Serpents went trigger-happy. They ambushed our crew, shot up our boys, and sequestered our multimillion-dollar ship.

We didn't take disrespect. We decided to teach them a lesson in terror.

Sweat dripped down my forehead as my fists moved in a blur of violence. Stavros, Dante, and I had orchestrated the retaliation. The boss of the Serpents loved football. He had rented an exclusive, heavily guarded private viewing suite to watch the Superbowl. We didn't bother shooting our way in. We pumped the ventilation system full of military-grade sleeping gas.

Once he and his armed entourage collapsed into unconsciousness, we dragged the boss out through the service elevator and tied him to a chair in a soundproof basement.

Fearing we were going to skin him alive, the coward cracked. He confessed that the unsanctioned port ambush and the killings were ordered by his trigger-happy nephew, who operated as an underboss. To our absolute disgust, the boss offered up his own nephew’s life in exchange for a free pass back to North Dakota.

Dante had been the one to pull the trigger. He put a bullet right between the nephew's eyes.

Shortly after the nephew's execution, the boss of the Serpents mysteriously died—likely poisoned—and his ruthless, cold-blooded sister took the throne. The open killings stopped, but a silent, venomous animosity still burned between our families.

I stopped punching. I leaned my forehead against the cool leather of the bag, my chest heaving as I dragged in deep breaths.

Could it be possible? Did a quiet, broken girl like Sloane Mercer stumble across a capo, a foot soldier, or an associate of the Serpents of Midnight? Had she angered an underboss in her hometown? Were they trying to teach her a lesson in submission?

No. I shook my head, wiping the sweat from my brow. The math didn't add up. Cartel hitters didn't leave people breathing. They didn't leave jagged scars and broken bones. They put two in the chest and one in the head. Sloane was expected to die from her injuries in a ditch somewhere, discarded by amateurs driven by rage, not cartel orders.

My phone chimed from the bench. I unwrapped the tape from my hands and grabbed the device. It was a missed call from my father.

I dialed his number back immediately.

"Papa, you called?" I asked, keeping my breathing steady.

"Our offshore shipment has arrived at the eastern docks," his deep, gravelly voice echoed through the speaker. "I need you down there to oversee the cargo transfer tonight. Make sure there are no interruptions."

"Sure," I replied, grabbing my towel and wiping down my face. "I'll call the boys and head there now."

I ended the call and tossed the phone into my bag. The mystery of Sloane Mercer and the Serpents of Midnight would have to wait.

It was time to go to work.