Still, he wasn’t flashy the way you’d expect someone worth several billion dollars to be. As far as I knew, he had worked hard to hide the fact for a long time. I’d heard the stories, of course, of how Eric de Vries had walked away from his birthright. Gone to law school, like me. Started his own firm in Boston, only to be lured back to New York to save his family’s fortune. But I could have saved the guy a decade and told him he wasn’t ever going to be anything other than the head of a powerful family. Money has a funny way of weaving into people’s DNA. You can’t hide that kind of breeding.
“Hey,” I said as I followed Eric inside. “I was on my way uptown and thought I would drop in. I, uh, have some news.”
“That so?” Eric shook my hand. “Need a glass of wine to tell it?”
“It is after five o’clock.” I nodded toward the couch where Jane was sitting. “Hey, Jane.”
Eric went to get us all drinks in the kitchen without another word. I’d been here enough to where my unannounced visits weren’t much of a surprise anymore. For the same reason that Leona and I usually spoke in veiled terms, I made these updates in person.
Jane got up from the couch to greet me after I took off my trench coat and hung it with my hat.
“Hey, you,” she said. “Been a minute.”
“You’re looking good,” I told her honestly.
And it was true. When Eric had brought Jane home from Korea, she’d been completely traumatized, much too thin and ghostly. Now the color in her cheeks had returned, along with her trademark cat-eye glasses and penchant for needling her husband. We had the latter in common. I didn’t linger as she gave me a kiss on the cheek—as much fun as it was to rile Eric, I knew all too well how protective he could be over his wife’s affections. It was only last Thanksgiving that he had tried to clock me over the turkey for offering her a hug.
That, thankfully, seemed to be firmly in the past as Eric joined Jane and me by the flickering fire, delivering us both red wine while he stayed with vodka.
“Damn.” I wasn’t well-versed in French wines, generally preferring Italian, but I knew Eric only bought the best. “This is why I really come here. What is this, a Margaux?”
Eric nodded, though Jane shrugged.
I chuckled. “You don’t know?” I asked her.
“This one has the fancy tastes. I’d probably just bring home Three-Buck Chuck every night, but Eric thinks he’s allergic to it.”
I grimaced at the idea. I didn’t have the cash to drink one of the best wines in the world like house grog, but I was with Eric on this one. I appreciated the life people like the de Vrieses led. The perfectly tailored clothes. The spacious, yet comfortable home. The best food. The best wine. The best of everything.
“Nice work if you can get it,” as they say. And if you can, why the fuck not?
“I just don’t see the point of drinking garbage,” Eric was saying while he played with his wife’s dark hair.
“Why, my dear Rockefeller,” Jane teased. “What a charmingly privileged thing to say. Leave the swill to the slums, is that right?”
In a split second, Eric’s expression went from casually opaque to completely transparent. I’d seen it before. It was their ongoing act—Jane would say things that would purposefully get under Eric’s skin until his implacable facade broke. And when it did, she obviously relished the consequences.
The hand in Jane’s hair tightened, and the atmosphere in the room crackled. Eric growled something in his wife’s ear that made her turn just a few shades lighter red than the wine in her glass. He looked just as fierce as ever, but it was clear by her expression that whatever threat he’d just made was something Jane was more than happy to receive.
I shifted in my seat. Fuck, maybe I’d blown Caitlyn off too early. I could call her now. Meet up at a hotel on the East Side. Anything to scratch that goddamn itch.
And yet, I also knew that whatever charge had just passed between them wasn’t just about sex. I knew it because for one night, I had felt it too. Something happens when two souls join the same way bodies do. Nina Astor and I had given each other everything we had that night. For the first and only time in my life, I’d been completely naked with a woman and allowed her to do the same to me.
I’d been cut open. And so fucking deep.
Do you believe in love at first sight?
Not until I saw you.
There was no going back after that. Unfortunately, it also meant nothing else could replace it once it was lost.
I shook my head. I’d already been down that rabbit hole too many times today alone. Right now, I needed to focus on the two very real people in this room who needed my help.
“So, what’s up?” Eric pulled me out of my daydream. “What’s the news?”
And into something worse.
“Well, I’m afraid it’s not very good. I got a call from my friend at the CIA. They, um, are declining to prosecute. They won’t be sending anything to the DOJ.”
“What?”
Eric exploded off the couch, nearly tossing Jane to the floor. She barely saved her wineglass, but looked too crestfallen to reply.
“What the fuck happened?” Eric demanded. “We practically gift-wrapped that indictment for them!”
I waited while he continued to spout. Jane’s normal air of mischief had completely shuttered while she toyed with her wedding rings, still loose around her fingers.
“Look,” I said once Eric had calmed down. “We’ve talked about this. You know as well as I do that the current administration is basically in Carson’s pockets. A pardon was always a possibility. Now it’s just…a reality, I guess. Unless he’s prosecuted here. At the state level.”
“We should take it to the press,” Eric said. “I’ll give an interview to the Times. Try his ass in the court of public opinion. Isn’t that how they got that campaign manager indicted in 2017? Where’s the fucking accountability?”
“I’d wait on that for a minute,” I said. “There’s another way to go. One that won’t give away your hand.”
“Like murder?” Eric muttered.
Jane elbowed him in the ribs.
To be honest, I couldn’t really blame Eric for the joke. If it had been the love of my life targeted in this way (Nina’s face again appeared in the back of my mind), I’d have probably taken my Marine-issued Beretta to the streets a long time ago.
“Kidding,” Eric said with a long drink of his vodka. “Sort of.”
“Look, maybe the feds aren’t prosecuting, but the Brooklyn DA sure as hell is,” I continued.
I proceeded to outline—vaguely—how my boss intended to pick off the people surrounding John Carson, mafia-style. The Brooklyn DA’s office had been going after New York’s worst gangsters for over a hundred years. We had a process. You go after the small fish first. You cut off the whale’s food supply. And then, when he comes down to find out where his chow went, you swoop in with the net.
Maybe Carson could buy off the feds, but he didn’t have any leverage with my boss or me. We just needed the right crime. The right confession. The right jurisdiction.
I didn’t mention the file that Tiana had sent this afternoon. I wasn’t really supposed to be discussing the details with them anyway; I only wanted to give them a little peace of mind when I could. They deserved at least that much.