Chapter 3 - The Name Behind Northstar
Roman refused to let Chloe accompany him.
Chloe refused to care.
Those two positions lasted approximately four minutes.
“You said I could leave whenever I wanted,” she reminded him.
“I did.”
“So I’m leaving.”
“To accompany me into a meeting with a man connected to the people chasing you?”
“You make everything sound unreasonable when you say it like that.”
“It is unreasonable.”
“Dean knows me.”
“That is precisely the problem.”
“He may talk to me.”
“He may also be helping Russo.”
“So could you.”
Roman stopped buttoning his coat.
Chloe stood across the foyer wearing Elena’s borrowed sweatshirt and slippers.
The image was ridiculous.
The argument was not.
Roman stared at her for several seconds.
“I’m going to ask you something once.”
“Go ahead.”
“If I tell you that where I’m going may be dangerous, do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Then why insist on coming?”
Chloe looked at the blue paper.
“Because I spent three years being told not to ask questions.”
Roman said nothing.
“Tommy handled the money. Tommy made the decisions. Tommy told me which friends made him uncomfortable, which clothes made me look desperate for attention, which coworkers were trying to turn me against him.”
She swallowed.
“Tonight he hit me because I found one piece of paper.”
Her eyes lifted.
“I’m done being the last person in the room to know what’s happening to my own life.”
Roman’s face changed almost imperceptibly.
“All right.”
Elena stared at him.
“That easy?”
“No.”
Roman opened a cabinet and removed a pair of clean sneakers.
“But she’s right.”
They left through an underground garage.
Roman did not use the black sedan.
Instead, an ordinary gray SUV waited beside a service elevator.
“No driver?” Chloe asked.
“No.”
“No security?”
“One car behind us.”
“I don’t see one.”
“That would defeat the purpose.”
Chloe climbed inside.
Twenty minutes later they stopped outside a twenty-four-hour restaurant beneath an elevated train.
The sign read MARINO’S DINER.
It looked like the least threatening place in the city.
That, Chloe suspected, was why Roman chose it.
Dean sat in the back booth.
Without the rain and darkness, he looked less frightening than she remembered.
Mid-thirties.
Heavyset.
A scar on his chin.
Hands wrapped around untouched coffee.
When he saw Chloe, his face went pale.
“Jesus.”
Chloe stopped.
Dean stood.
“I didn’t know you were with him.”
“I’m not with anybody.”
“I mean Vale.”
“I know what you meant.”
Roman slid into the opposite side of the booth.
“Sit.”
Dean sat immediately.
Chloe noticed that too.
Roman did not raise his voice.
Did not threaten him.
He simply occupied the space as though everyone else understood invisible rules.
Chloe sat beside Roman.
Dean stared at her cheek.
“Tommy did that?”
“He’s done worse.”
Dean lowered his eyes.
“I told him he was gonna lose you.”
“Apparently he thought losing me and letting me leave were two different things.”
Dean had no response.
Roman placed a photograph of the blue invoice on the table.
“Talk.”
Dean looked around.
“There’s cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Your cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone listening?”
“Only the people I allow.”
Dean leaned forward.
“Frank’s moving everything.”
“What is everything?”
“I don’t know.”
Roman’s voice remained calm.
“Try again.”
“I swear. Tommy handled car paperwork and fake repair invoices. Frank needed companies that could explain cash coming in and out.”
Chloe looked at Roman.
“Money laundering?”
Dean winced.
Roman said nothing.
Dean continued.
“Tommy didn’t know what the containers were. Not at first. Russo’s guy brought numbers, dates, totals. Tommy made invoices to match.”
“Why Gallagher Auto?” Chloe asked.
“Because nobody questions weird parts orders. Engines. Imports. Restoration work.”
Roman tapped the photograph.
“Northstar.”
Dean’s hands tightened around his coffee.
“That’s when Tommy got scared.”
“When did he first hear the name?”
“Two months ago.”
“What did Frank tell him?”
“Nothing. Tommy saw it on a transfer sheet.”
“Transfer from where?”
Dean looked at Roman.
“Marsten.”
Chloe felt her stomach drop.
“My company?”
Dean nodded.
“That’s why Tommy started asking about your job.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“He never cared about my work.”
“He did lately.”
Chloe remembered.
Tommy appearing interested in office gossip.
Asking whether Marsten still stored old files downstairs.
Asking which managers had access to property archives.
She had thought he was pretending to be supportive.
Now the memory made her sick.
Dean continued.
“Tommy realized some of the money wasn’t coming from Frank’s usual businesses. It was coming through buildings.”
“What buildings?” Roman asked.
“Old buildings. Apartment blocks. Warehouses. Places being sold, refinanced, transferred.”
Roman became very still.
“Show me.”
Dean pulled a folded list from his jacket.
Roman read it.
His eyes stopped halfway down.
“What?” Chloe asked.
Roman handed her the paper.
Most addresses meant nothing.
One did.
1729 West Mercer Street.
Chloe looked around mentally.
The townhouse.
“This house?”
Roman nodded.
“But you said people think it burned.”
“The official ownership records say it did.”
“What does that mean?”
Roman looked at Dean.
“It means somebody has been moving titles to properties they don’t actually control.”
Dean nodded nervously.
“Tommy figured that part out.”
“How?”
“He’s not as stupid as everyone thinks.”
Chloe almost smiled.
“Debatable.”
Dean continued.
“He found the same buildings showing up more than once. Different corporations. Same signatures. Some dead owners.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Whose signatures?”
“Your father’s.”
Silence.
Roman’s father had been dead for eleven years.
Dean pushed his coffee away.
“Tommy copied everything.”
“The old copies,” Chloe said.
Dean nodded.
“He said if Frank ever tried to bury him, he’d have insurance.”
“Where?”
“Under the shop.”
“The fire?”
“Frank knew about the copies.”
Roman leaned closer.
“How?”
Dean looked ashamed.
“Me.”
Chloe stared at him.
Dean’s eyes filled with something close to panic.
“I didn’t know what Frank was gonna do. He asked where Tommy kept records. Said Tommy was stealing.”
“You told him?”
“He said it was business.”
Chloe laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Men like Tommy and Frank always call it business when they want somebody else to pay.”
Dean looked away.
“Where is Tommy?” Roman asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You said he was missing.”
“After Chloe ran, Tommy called me. He sounded messed up. Said he’d made a mistake. Said the paper she had wasn’t the dangerous one.”
Chloe leaned forward.
“What does that mean?”
Dean looked at her.
“He said yours was just the index.”
Roman’s attention sharpened.
“Index to what?”
“I asked.”
Dean swallowed.
“He said Northstar.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“He said, ‘Northstar isn’t a shipment, Dean. It’s a list.’”
Roman’s eyes hardened.
“A list of what?”
“I don’t know. Before he could answer, someone came into the shop.”
“Who?”
“Tommy whispered Frank’s name.”
Chloe felt cold despite the diner’s overheated air.
“And then?”
“The line went dead.”
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
A waitress passed carrying pancakes.
A man near the window laughed at something on his phone.
The ordinary world continued.
Roman looked at Dean.
“Where are the copies under the shop?”
“Basement wall. Behind the old compressor.”
“The building is burning.”
“Fire didn’t reach the basement when I left.”
“When did you leave?”
“Before the trucks came.”
Roman stood.
Dean grabbed his sleeve.
Roman looked at the hand.
Dean removed it immediately.
“There’s something else.”
Roman sat again.
Dean lowered his voice.
“The date.”
“November eighteenth?”
Dean nodded.
“Frank kept telling Tommy everything had to be clean by then.”
“Why?”
“I heard him say, ‘After Northstar clears, Vale won’t own enough of his own city to stop us.’”
Chloe looked at Roman.
For the first time since meeting him, she saw something genuinely dangerous pass across his face.
Not rage.
Recognition.
“What?” she asked.
Roman looked toward the rain outside.
“My father built V Freight forty years ago.”
“That seems relevant.”
“He also built a network of holding companies to protect property from lawsuits, creditors, and hostile takeovers.”
“Legal?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“This is not the moment.”
“Fine.”
Roman pointed at the addresses.
“Some of these properties anchor those companies.”
Chloe understood slowly.
“If somebody controls the deeds…”
“They can claim the companies.”
“And if they claim the companies?”
“They gain voting rights in everything attached to them.”
Dean whispered, “Black Harbor.”
Roman nodded.
“V Freight.”
Another nod.
“Vale Development?”
“Yes.”
Chloe stared at the blue invoice.
“This isn’t about moving cargo.”
“No.”
“It’s about moving ownership.”
Roman looked at her.
“Exactly.”
Dean went pale.
“So Frank’s stealing your company?”
Roman’s answer was quieter.
“He’s stealing my father’s entire estate.”
Chloe pointed at the date.
“And on November eighteenth?”
Roman glanced at the diner clock.
It was nearly two in the morning.
“Three days from now, V Freight’s annual holding-company certification takes effect.”
“So if the false ownership records are accepted first…”
Roman finished the thought.
“Frank becomes legally positioned to claim assets before anyone knows the paperwork is fraudulent.”
Chloe’s accounting mind raced.
“Then why burn the old copies?”
“Because old physical invoices could prove the transfers were manufactured afterward.”
She looked at Roman.
“You need Tommy’s box.”
“Yes.”
“And Frank knows that.”
“Yes.”
“And the shop is burning.”
Roman stood.
This time Chloe stood with him.
Dean remained seated.
Roman looked at him.
“You’re coming.”
Dean blinked.
“Why?”
“Because if I discover you lied about that wall, you’re going to explain it in person.”
They reached the parking lot.
Roman’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed almost immediately.
“Repeat that.”
Chloe watched him.
Roman listened.
Then looked toward her.
“Where?”
A pause.
“Keep him there.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” Chloe asked.
Roman slipped the phone into his coat.
“They found Tommy.”
Chloe’s pulse jumped.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Roman’s gaze went toward the distant glow of the city.
“He walked into a police precinct.”
Chloe stared.
“That’s good.”
Roman did not move.
“No,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because he isn’t asking for protection.”
Roman opened the SUV door.
May you like
“He’s asking for Frank Russo.”
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