Chapter 4: The Brother Who Ran
Sienna stared at the screen.
Silas was watching her face.
"Problem?" he asked.
"My brother." She turned the phone so he could see the message.
"He's been gone for two weeks.
No contact.
Nothing."
Silas looked at the screen without touching it.
"Does he know where you work?"
"He knew I waitressed.
He didn't know where."
"Does he know about tonight?"
"He can't." She looked at the message again.
*We need to talk.* No apology.
No explanation.
Just four words that assumed she would respond.
That was Leo entirely.
"He runs when things get bad and reappears when he thinks it's safe."
"Or when he needs something," Silas said.
Sienna didn't answer, because Silas was right and she didn't want to say it out loud.
She typed back: *Where are you?*
The reply came in under a minute.
An address in Astoria.
A diner she recognized — they had gone there as children with their father on Sunday mornings when Robert Hayes was still the kind of man who took his kids out for pancakes.
Leo had chosen it deliberately.
He knew she wouldn't be able to stay angry in that particular booth.
She hated that it worked.
"I need to meet him," she said.
"Tonight?"
"He's already there.
If I don't go now, he'll disappear again."
Silas was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "I'll drive you."
"I don't need —"
"Mr.
Russo's instruction," Silas said simply.
"Until the situation with Dolan's associates is fully resolved, you don't move around the city alone at night."
Sienna wanted to argue.
She looked at the bruises she could feel tightening around her throat and decided not to.
The diner was exactly as she remembered.
Cracked vinyl booths.
A counter with rotating pie displays.
Coffee that had been burning since the previous administration.
Leo was in the back corner, hunched over a mug, wearing a jacket two sizes too large that didn't belong to him.
He looked up when she walked in.
His face did something complicated — relief, guilt, and a practiced version of his usual easy smile, all arriving at once and none of them quite landing.
"Sienna." He started to stand.
"Don't." She slid into the booth across from him.
"Just talk."
The easy smile dropped.
Good.
"I heard what happened tonight," he said quietly.
"Word moves fast in certain circles."
"You heard."
"Mickey has people everywhere.
When something goes wrong for him, they talk." Leo wrapped both hands around his mug.
"I heard Damian Russo got involved."
"Because of what you did," Sienna said.
"Because you borrowed money from people connected to Mickey Dolan and then you left.
You left me there, Leo."
"I know."
"Mickey had his hand around my throat tonight."
Leo's jaw tightened.
He looked down at the table.
"I know," he said again.
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry." She let the word sit there.
"I panicked," he said.
"The startup collapsed and the debt was already compounding and I — I thought if I could get clear and find a way to raise the money from somewhere else, I could come back and fix it before anything happened to you."
"And did you?
Find another way?"
He didn't answer.
"Leo."
"Not exactly." He reached into the jacket — the wrong-sized jacket — and produced a folded envelope.
He set it on the table between them.
"I found something else."
Sienna looked at the envelope but didn't touch it.
"What is that?"
"I was looking for investors," Leo said.
"People who might back a new project, help me raise enough to cover the debt.
I got introduced to a man named Vincent Caruso through a contact in my old network."
The name landed wrong.
Sienna felt it before she understood why.
"Caruso," she said.
"He's not connected to Russo," Leo said quickly.
"Different family entirely.
Old money, legitimate on the surface.
He runs a private equity group out of Midtown." Leo pushed the envelope closer.
"He offered to clear the entire debt.
All $50,000.
In exchange for one thing."
"What thing?"
"Information." Leo's voice dropped.
"About Damian Russo."
The diner felt very quiet suddenly.
"He wanted me to get close to someone in Russo's orbit," Leo said.
"Feed back whatever I could learn about operations, schedules, financial structures." He paused.
"He knew about you.
About the club.
He suggested you might be the access point."
Sienna's hands were flat on the table.
"He approached you before tonight," she said.
"Three days ago."
"And you came to meet me now — after I ended up inside Russo's protection — because —"
"Because I needed to warn you," Leo said.
"And because I needed you to know I didn't take the deal."
"You didn't take it."
"I told him no." Leo met her eyes.
"Sienna, I'm an idiot and I ran when I should have stayed, but I'm not going to sell my sister to someone who wants to use her against a man like Russo.
I'm not that person."
She studied his face.
Leo had always been a bad liar — their father had said so a hundred times, half affectionately, half in despair.
His left eye did something specific when he was constructing a story.
It wasn't doing it now.
He was telling the truth.
"Vincent Caruso," she said.
"Yes."
"He knew my name."
"Yes."
"He knew which club I worked at."
Leo nodded slowly.
"He had details that — yes.
He knew more than he should have."
Sienna picked up the envelope.
Inside was a business card — clean, cream-colored, embossed — and a single handwritten note.
*The offer stands.
Call when you're ready.*
She turned the card over.
On the back, in the same handwriting: *Tell your sister I said hello.*
The note had been written before tonight.
Before Mickey.
Before the corridor.
Before any of it.
Vincent Caruso had known she would end up in Damian Russo's orbit.
He had been counting on it.
"Leo," she said carefully.
"Did you tell anyone you were meeting me tonight?"
His face went still.
"I texted you from a new number," he said.
"Did anyone else know this number?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Across the diner, the door opened.
Two men walked in wearing ordinary clothes, ordered nothing, and sat at the counter facing the room.
Sienna did not look at them directly.
May you like
She reached under the table and typed a single word to Silas.
*Inside.*
