Chapter 3 - The Crayon Box
The mention of Julian Vance sent a silent shockwave through the foyer.
Julian wasn't just an underboss; he was Dante’s cousin, a man who had grown up in the same Brooklyn rowhouses, shared blood pacts in basements, and stood beside Dante through the bloody winter war of 2018. Julian was the administrative architect of the family, the man who handled the logistics, the safehouses, and the personal security sweeps.
If Julian was compromised, the entire Moretti empire was already bleeding from the inside out.
"Are you sure it was Julian's seal on the package?" Dante asked, rising to his full six-foot-two height. The air in the foyer seemed to drop ten degrees.
"Yes, Don Dante," Marco responded, his hand drifting involuntarily toward his tactical earpiece. "Julian personally took custody of the garment bag at the private terminal in Teterboro. He brought it here himself at eight o'clock."
Elena was trembling violently, clutching Mia closer. "Mr. Moretti, Mia is only four... she makes up stories sometimes about dragons and talking cats. She didn't mean to accuse anyone—"
"Kids don't invent surveillance frequencies, Elena," Dante interrupted gently. He crouched back down, locking eyes with the little girl. "Mia, sweetheart. Did you see the man's face?"
Mia shook her head solemnly, her brown pigtails bouncing. "He had a big black hat on. Like a shadow. But he smelled like the funny sour candy in the silver dish, and his hand had a snake on it."
Dante’s jaw tightened. Julian didn't have tattoos. Julian wore bespoke three-piece suits and carried antique gold pocket watches. But Dante knew someone in their orbit who reeked of lemon-menthol lozenges and had ink running down his fingers.
"Wait," Mia said, wriggling out of her mother’s grip despite Elena’s panicked gasp. "I drewed it! I made a picture of the bad man so he wouldn't steal Mr. Dante’s shiny things!"
Mia darted across the foyer toward a small wicker basket tucked beneath the antique side table where Elena kept her cleaning supplies. From the bottom of the basket, Mia pulled out a battered metal tin—an old butter-cookie container repurposing twenty-four mismatched wax crayons.
With careful, deliberate hands, she lifted the lid.
Tucked neatly beneath stubby red and blue crayons was a folded sheet of heavy white ledger paper—the expensive, watermarked parchment Dante kept exclusively in his private desk drawers.
Mia carried the paper over with both hands and handed it directly to Dante, treating it like a sacred peace offering.
"See?" she whispered proudly. "He was hurting the silk."
Dante unfolded the paper.
The drawing was typical of a four-year-old: stick figures with oversized heads and scribbled limbs. But the details Mia’s photographic eyes had caught made Dante’s blood turn to ice.
Drawn in thick black crayon was a tall figure leaning over a wardrobe rack. On the figure’s right wrist, drawn in bright green and black wax, was an undeniable coiled viper whose tail wrapped around the thumb. And on the figure's finger, colored with a yellow crayon, was a massive ring with a square purple stone.
Dante knew that ring.
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It wasn't Julian Vance.
It was Tomas 'The Viper' Rossi—the second-in-command to Don Carmine Stracci, the head of the rival family who had called the peace summit on Mott Street.
