Time moved fast. A day gone in a blink.
Maya's left foot still hadn't fully healed, but she hadn't abandoned her surveillance of Frank's building. She'd simply adjusted her schedule — from midnight stakeouts to daytime ones — and found a McDonald's near the building. She sat there with a cup of Coke and a large fry, crunching through her meal while listening for anything useful.
At 5:23 PM the following day, Jimmy — the man in gold-rimmed glasses who never seemed to sleep — finally got through to Frank Gardes.
Maya set down her cup and listened.
"Boss, I need to update you on the cargo ship situation. I've spent the last two days pulling every contact I have. Confirmed: our guys were killed with cold weapons. I managed to bribe a medical examiner and got the injury reports on all seven. It doesn't make any sense, boss. One short blade. One blade took out a fully armed crew. And the killer didn't leave a single drop of their own blood at the scene — not one trace. The man in the lower cargo hold was... there was nothing left. No bones. Just a red mist on the walls. Boss, could this be a mutant? It has to be a mutant, right?!"
His voice cracked by the end, full of panic.
Frank had known all of this already. He made a point of never showing his full hand to his subordinates — not even Jimmy, who had been with him for nearly twenty years.
He let Jimmy spiral until the word "mutant" came out. Then he spoke.
"Are you brain-dead?! You think mutants are everywhere? We're not the American military — why would the Brotherhood come after us? Keep talking like that and I'll stuff a grenade somewhere that'll make you disappear without a trace."
On the other end, Jimmy went red and shifted uncomfortably, some deeply unfortunate image apparently crossing his mind.
"But — but boss, there was absolutely no explosion residue! And the man who was clearly blown up had no chemical trace on him — none at all!"
"You moron, it's practically the twenty-first century. You think an air cannon is science fiction? No residue means new chemical compounds — compounds that don't leave a signature. You're supposed to be a university graduate! You've got less common sense than a high school dropout. God almighty."
The scolding worked. Jimmy began to calm down. He was right — strange things happened all the time these days. A bit of black-market tech wasn't worth losing sleep over.
Feeling more grounded, and very eager not to get yelled at again, Jimmy quickly moved on. "Boss, that's actually not the only reason I called. There's something else."
"Let's hear it."
"They pushed back hard — went straight to the NYPD. The last two days, the cops have been absolutely feral. Hell's Kitchen got swept multiple times. We lost a lot of our white-powder operations — they got taken down mid-run. The damage was significant."
Frank's brow furrowed. "Who got caught? Any chance it leads back to me?"
Jimmy thought it over. "Most of the small-time stuff is fine. But — Lucius's wife, Cochi, got caught in the middle of a pickup. Looks like she was trying to raise money for Lucius's new album and got greedy — took more product than she could move fast enough. The question now is whether she'll give up the supply chain."
Frank relaxed slightly. "You did right calling me. Don't worry about it — I'll handle it when I'm back. Listen: tomorrow night, around 2 AM, I'll come to the building myself. Don't send anyone to pick me up. Make sure security is airtight — everyone pulled back to the building, all weapons ready. When I get back, we move."
Jimmy's expression hardened. The boss had clearly already identified a target. He was the kind of person who understood when not to ask questions. He nodded his agreement.
"One more thing — what's the status on Wade's investigation into Lillian?" Frank asked, having dealt with business, finally remembering the problem growing on top of his own head.
At the name Wade, Jimmy made a strained, wheezing sound, like a man trying very hard not to say something. He took a while. "Boss... maybe wait until you're back in person and we can get Wade in here to—"
"Spit it out. If he found something, tell me now. Stop dancing around it."
Jimmy steeled himself. You asked for it, boss. Don't blame me.
"Boss. According to Wade's investigation, in the year before and after Mary was born, Lillian was... involved with nine different men. Four of them were our own guys. Three were showbiz types from Broadway. The remaining two were foreign nationals visiting New York."
Frank had already braced himself for bad news. He'd suspected something was off with Mary for a while — she didn't look like him. He'd made his peace with the possibility.
But he hadn't expected nine.
He'd braced for a hat. He'd gotten a whole damn field.
What little composure he had left reminded him: Don't touch Lillian. Not now.
He was in the middle of a power struggle with Wilson Fisk for control of New York's underworld. He had a hard fight waiting the moment he set foot back in the city. And Lillian's uncle happened to be a district attorney in Queens — someone who'd been quietly useful more than once.
"Fine." He exhaled through his teeth, low and controlled. "Handle the four guys who helped themselves to my wife. The other five — we'll sort them out when I'm home."
"About those four, boss — three of them are already dead. The fourth is locked up on Rikers Island, so—"
"Leave it. We'll talk when I'm back."
Jimmy hung up. He let out a long breath and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
Frank Gardes might be a genuine criminal mastermind, but when it came to women, the man had stepped in something he couldn't scrape off.
What Jimmy hadn't told his boss — and never would — was that nine was a conservative count. Many of the men involved were Upper East Side elite, federal agents, or senior figures within their own organization.
Jimmy himself had been one of them. So had Wade.
Though in all fairness, he doubted Lillian even remembered. Back in her prime, she'd lived with the throttle wide open, completely off the leash.
Jimmy himself was an illegitimate son of an Upper East Side power player, which meant he'd grown up with a front-row seat to how those circles actually worked. The respectable women up there weren't really so different from Lillian — they were just more careful about where they drew the line. Lillian, in her day, had crossed every line available to her. The worst of it had involved her then-fiancé's brother — messily and publicly enough that half of New York heard about it. Her reputation had been finished. The only path left was marrying an unconventional "promising prospect" named Frank Gardes.
Jimmy didn't feel sorry for Frank, though. Frank had gone after Lillian deliberately — for her connections, her family name, the doors she could open. He'd known exactly what he was getting.
A sleaze married a skank. Made for each other.