Don’t Leave My Side
Chapter 01 - Don’t Leave My Side
Rain hammered the tinted windows of Vincent Costa’s Maybach hard enough to turn Manhattan into a watercolor.
Neon bled across the glass. Brake lights stretched into red ribbons. Somewhere behind them, three cars back, a gray sedan changed lanes at exactly the same moment Vincent’s driver did.
Vincent noticed.
Mave did not.
She sat beside him with a tablet balanced on one knee, thin glasses low on her nose, correcting a routing schedule for the Queens warehouse.
“The Newark subcontractor still hasn’t confirmed Thursday,” she said. “If they miss the window, we’ll have six refrigerated loads sitting overnight.”
Vincent looked at the rearview mirror.
The gray sedan remained.
“Move them to Hoboken.”
“That adds almost nine thousand.”
“Do it.”
Mave glanced up.
“You usually complain when I spend four.”
“Tonight I’m feeling generous.”
“That is alarming.”
Vincent almost smiled.
Then the sedan disappeared behind a delivery truck.
His jaw tightened.
Mave returned to the spreadsheet.
She did not know someone had begun following her before they left the office.
Earlier that afternoon, she had sat behind the mahogany desk outside Vincent’s private office with three monitors open and a cold cup of coffee near her elbow.
Three columns did not match.
An offshore holding company in Belize had transferred money into a trucking firm in New Jersey.
Thirty thousand dollars.
Not enough to make headlines.
Enough to make Mave suspicious.
She highlighted the discrepancy in yellow.
She did not ask what was inside the trucks.
That had been rule number one when she took the job three years earlier.
Run the schedule.
Balance the clean books.
Know which shipment could be discussed on email and which one mysteriously required a telephone call.
Do not ask what was inside the trucks.
The heavy oak door opened.
Vincent walked in.
At forty, he had the kind of presence that made expensive rooms feel rented. Tall, broad through the shoulders, dark wavy hair swept back, black shirt open at the throat. Tattoos disappeared under his cuffs and climbed one side of his neck.
A faint bruise darkened his left cheekbone.
Mave noticed.
She did not ask.
She stood, picked up the ceramic mug from her desk and held it out.
“Black. Two sugars.”
Vincent stopped.
For a moment he looked at the coffee as if he had forgotten such things existed.
Then he took it.
His fingers brushed hers.
Cold.
“Thanks.”
He drank and closed his eyes for exactly two seconds.
In those two seconds, the feared head of the Costa organization looked like a tired man who had not slept in three days.
Then the door closed behind his eyes.
The mask returned.
“Tell me the dock issue is fixed.”
“Secondary warehouse in Queens. Four thousand extra in overtime, but it avoids the Port Authority inspection window.”
Vincent sat.
“You’re good at this, Mave.”
“I’m good at getting boxes from point A to point B.”
“Right.”
He took another drink.
“Boxes.”
She ignored the word.
“The pediatric-wing gala is tonight,” he said.
“I know. Plaza ballroom. Mayor at table one, Senator Wexler at table three. Smile for photographs, donate generously, and leave before anyone asks you to chair something.”
“I need you there.”
Mave stopped scrolling.
“I don’t do events.”
“Donovan is sick.”
“Take Leo.”
“Leo thinks networking means knowing where a man parks.”
“That can be useful.”
“Tonight requires someone who knows which alderman’s wife changed her surname after the divorce and which developer is pretending not to know the union president.”
Mave leaned back.
“You have other associates.”
“My other associates solve problems with blunt instruments.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You’re a scalpel.”
Something about the compliment made her uneasy.
She chose the safest objection.
“I don’t own a Plaza dress.”
Vincent opened a drawer, took out a cream envelope, and tossed it onto her desk.
“Boutique on Fifth. Three o’clock.”
Mave stared at him.
“They have your measurements.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“You have my measurements on file?”
“I have everyone’s everything on file.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“Get back to work.”
He opened his laptop.
Conversation over.
Mave hated how easily he could switch himself off.
She hated more that the envelope felt like a door she had spent three years refusing to open.
At seven that evening, the Plaza ballroom smelled of orchids, roasted duck and money.
Mave stood beside a marble pillar holding a champagne flute she had no intention of drinking.
The boutique had put her in midnight-blue silk.
Elegant.
Simple.
Far more expensive than anything she owned.
It felt less like a dress than borrowed armor.
Across the room, Vincent listened to a state senator complain about property taxes.
He appeared comfortable.
Mave knew better.
His left hand rested casually near his jacket opening.
His eyes moved every few seconds.
Door.
Balcony.
Waiter.
Exit.
Then her.
“He’s looking at you again.”
Mave startled.
A drop of champagne landed on her thumb.
Leo stood beside her.
Forty, broad-shouldered, dark hair, black suit, expression permanently halfway between bored and armed.
“He is not looking at me.”
“Yes.”
“He scans the room.”
“Every four seconds.”
Leo found a piece of gum in his pocket.
“He looks at you every ten.”
Heat rose into Mave’s face.
“I’m his secretary.”
“Sure.”
“The brain cell that remembers Senator Wexler’s wife hates lilies.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Leo’s eyes moved over the crowd.
“Just keep yours open.”
“Why?”
“Lot of ghosts in the room tonight.”
He walked away before she could ask what that meant.
Mave looked toward Vincent.
He was looking at her.
Across tuxedos and diamonds and floating trays of champagne, his dark eyes held hers for one second too long.
Something moved beneath her ribs.
Not fear.
Gravity.
Mave looked down at her phone.
The Queens warehouse had sent another message about the thirty-thousand-dollar discrepancy.
She opened the attachment.
Same Belize company.
Same trucking firm.
One added note.
Consulting services.
She frowned.
When she raised her head, the room felt different.
The quartet still played.
People still laughed.
Yet the air had changed.
A man stood near the double mahogany doors.
Late thirties.
Pale hair clipped close.
Jagged scar across his left eyebrow.
Tuxedo loose across the shoulders, as if he was accustomed to wearing something heavier.
No drink.
No conversation.
He stared directly at Mave.
She opened the digital guest list.
Face recognition had been built into the event file by Vincent’s security team.
She searched.
Nothing.
She searched manually.
Nothing.
Not registered.
Mave looked for Leo.
Gone.
Then Vincent.
Already watching the man.
She saw the exact second his public face disappeared.
The senator was still talking when Vincent cut him off.
He moved.
Not toward the stranger.
Toward Mave.
The stranger began walking too.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
Ten.
Mave stepped backward until her heel struck marble.
Then charcoal wool filled her vision.
Vincent moved between them.
One arm came around her waist and pulled her tight against his side.
His body was rigid.
“Don’t leave my side.”
Mave gripped his sleeve.
“Who is he?”
Vincent never looked at her.
“Someone who shouldn’t be here.”
Mave opened the guest list again.
“He’s not registered.”
“I know.”
The stranger stopped five feet away.
His cold expression softened into something worse.
Recognition.
“Hello, Mave.”
Every muscle in her body froze.
Vincent looked down.
“You know him?”
“I’ve never seen him before.”
The stranger smiled.
“That is true.”
Vincent shifted Mave behind his shoulder as Leo appeared through the crowd.
“Then how do you know her name?” Vincent asked.
The stranger looked at him.
“I know a great deal more than her name.”
Vincent’s hand closed lightly around Mave’s arm.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to anchor.
The stranger reached inside his jacket.
Leo moved.
Vincent moved faster.
“Slowly.”
The man obeyed.
He removed only a folded photograph.
Placed it on the nearest table.
Then stepped away.
Mave looked down.
A woman stood beside a cargo truck.
Dark hair.
Thin glasses.
Same serious mouth Mave saw in the mirror every morning.
Her mother.
Twenty years younger.
Beside her stood Vincent’s father.
And on the back, in blue ink, someone had written:
COSTA TERMINAL — NIGHT SHIFT.
Mave looked at Vincent.
“My mother worked for your family?”
The stranger answered.
“Not exactly.”
He looked at Vincent.
“Ask him why your application was marked priority three years ago.”
Vincent’s face changed.
Mave saw it.
Tiny.
Enough.
She stepped away from his arm.
“You knew.”
“Mave.”
“How much?”
The stranger backed into the crowd.
Leo started after him.
Vincent stopped him.
“No.”
Mave stared.
“Why are you letting him leave?”
Vincent kept his eyes on the stranger.
“Because if he wanted to kill you, he had better opportunities.”
“That is your comforting answer?”
“No.”
The stranger disappeared through the ballroom doors.
Vincent picked up the photograph.
His thumb moved once across the edge.
He knew the image.
Mave understood.
“How long have you known my mother’s face?”
Vincent finally looked at her.
Too late.
May you like
And Mave realized the most dangerous stranger in the ballroom might not have been the man who knew her name.
It might have been the man she had trusted for three years.
