Chapter 8 - The Bus Station Drop
The midnight bus from Cincinnati idled in Bay Four of the Dayton downtown terminal, its diesel engine coughing thick gray exhaust into the freezing sleet. Inside the terminal, the harsh fluorescent lights flickered over rows of sticky plastic seats and vending machines humming with stale energy.
A figure in a dark trench coat pulled low over his face walked briskly toward locker number 114, his boots echoing sharply off the terrazzo floor. It was Vincent. His expensive gray cashmere coat was stained with mud along the hem from his dash through the drainage tunnel, but his movements were calculated, sharp, and predatory.
He pulled the small, old brass key—the one Lily had found beneath the floral arrangements in Eamon’s old room—from his pocket and slid it into the rusted lock of locker 114. It turned with a satisfying, mechanical click.
Vincent pulled the metal door open.
Inside sat a heavy, leather-bound ledger with water-damaged edges, alongside a bulky, older-model cassette recorder and a stack of uncashed bearer bonds totaling half a million dollars. Vincent reached in, his fingers closing triumphantly around the leather spine of the ledger.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you, Vincent."
The voice cut through the hum of the vending machines like a scalpel.
Vincent froze, his hand inches inside the locker. He didn't turn around immediately; instead, his eyes scanned the reflective glass of the ticket window across the corridor. Standing twenty feet back, leaning casually against a pillar with his hands buried deep in his pockets, was a man in an untucked plaid shirt and a worn leather jacket—Leo Vance, one of the North End’s old enforcers who had supposedly retired to Florida a decade ago.
"Leo," Vincent murmured, slowly withdrawing his hand and turning around to face him. A thin, nervous smile stretched across his mouth. "I heard you were sunning your old bones down south. Didn't figure you'd drag yourself back to this frozen shithole for Daniel's domestic drama."
"Daniel didn't send me," Leo said, stepping closer under the flickering light. He had a scarred cheek and dead, obsidian eyes that didn't blink. "The old council sent me. You broke the pact, Vincent. When we let you fake your death twelve years ago, the deal was you stay dead. You don't come back, you don't touch the accounts, and you sure as hell don't drag the foundation into a federal spotlight that burns us all."
Vincent laughed, a dry, nervous sound that echoed off the high ceiling. "The council? Those old fossils are running a retirement home for washed-up bookmakers. Times have changed, Leo. The feds are already moving on Daniel. In twelve hours, my dear brother will be doing life in a supermax, and I’ll inherit the entire portfolio—legitimate and otherwise."
"You're forgetting one thing," Leo said, his hand sliding slowly beneath his leather jacket.
"And what’s that?"
"Daniel’s got more friends left in this city than you remember."
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Before Vincent could liven his muscles to run, a heavy figure tackled him from behind, driving him hard into the metal lockers with a deafening crash that knocked the wind out of his lungs.
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