Lopez put on the face of a guy who'd been around the block, continuing his little flex.
"I had the exact same reaction the first time I saw this much gold. Back when I was working at First Bank, we had even more than this!"
Lawson was the only one reacting normally, mostly because he already knew there were five tons of gold sitting in the room. He fed Lopez's ego with a quick compliment while his eyes scanned the vault's layout.
"Didn't realize you did a stint at First Bank, Mr. Lopez."
"Ha! Ancient history. Barely worth mentioning!" Lopez looked even more smug.
Hopefully, the guy would still be smiling in a few days.
The St. Martin's vault absolutely dwarfed the Pacific Standard branch. Honestly, the Pacific Standard vault wasn't much bigger than a bathroom at the Bonanno estate. This subterranean bunker was easily ten times the size.
The perimeter walls were lined with safe deposit boxes. At a glance, there had to be five or six hundred of them.
That was a problem.
Francis had converted a massive chunk of the family's assets into bearer bonds. Those were definitely locked inside these steel boxes. If Donnie had to pick them open one by one, he'd die of old age before they finished the heist.
They needed another way to crack them, or at the very least, a way to narrow down the target boxes.
Bearer bonds took up zero physical space but held the exact same value as the gold. Pound for pound, taking the bonds was a vastly superior ROI.
There were also neat stacks of crisp, uncirculated hundred-dollar bills sitting on a steel table, stacked like masonry bricks. But next to five tons of solid gold, the cash almost looked like an afterthought.
"Mr. Lopez, mind if I get some b-roll of the gold and the cash? It'll blow the viewers' minds."
"Absolutely! Not a problem at all!"
With Francis dead, nobody was looking over Lopez's shoulder. He was feeling generous with his authority.
Lawson hoisted the heavy camera rig and started sweeping the lens over the pallets of gold and the stacks of cash. While he was at it, he deliberately panned across the blank sections of the walls.
Something was off. He couldn't spot any patch jobs from the supposed "earthquake damage."
The walls looked perfectly uniform. No fresh concrete, no structural seams.
If a concrete wall had been repaired, there would be an obvious color difference—unless the bank had paid to repaint the entire interior of the vault just to blend it in. But knowing American corporate greed, they wouldn't spend a single dime on purely cosmetic paint inside a sealed, underground vault. Who was going to see it?
Furthermore, Lawson could clearly see faint watermarks on the blank sections of the wall. That lined up perfectly with his intel about the severe pipe leaks.
Wait...
Lawson stared at the massive rows of safe deposit boxes. A thought clicked into place.
What if they didn't just patch the structural damage? What if they excavated the damaged sections and installed new safe deposit boxes over the repairs?
The only way to confirm that theory was to check the wear-and-tear on the metal plating of the boxes.
Unfortunately, Lawson couldn't just stand there zooming in on the locks without raising massive red flags. He'd have to let Donnie—the actual safecracking expert—review the raw tape later to spot the newer boxes.
"I think I've got enough. Shall we head out?"
Lawson nodded. As he turned toward the door, he subtly flicked a spy pen under the table holding the cash. It rolled into the shadows, completely out of sight.
They filed out of the vault, watching Lopez and the Head of Security seal the massive steel door back into place.
Megan instantly shifted into exit mode.
"Mr. Lopez, the shoot is wrapped. We'll be heading out now."
"So soon? Why don't you stay for a coffee?"
Megan didn't want to spend another second looking at his greasy face. She shook her head quickly.
"Wish I could, but we're on a brutal deadline. We still have to hit the editing bay, get the footage cleared by legal, and record the voiceovers. Time is tight."
"What a shame."
Lopez looked genuinely disappointed, but there was nothing he could do but watch Megan and Lawson walk away.
However, as they were crossing the bank lobby toward the exit, Lawson suddenly spotted a familiar face.
"Mia?"
Hearing her name, Mia turned, scanning the crowd to see who called her.
Lawson instantly realized his current "Jack Cole" face wasn't supposed to know her. He snapped his head the other way, hiding his profile behind the bulky camera rig.
Unable to spot whoever called her name, Mia assumed she was just hearing things and went back to her business.
"Jack? Everything okay?" Megan gave him a weird look.
"Fine. Thought I saw someone I knew. Let's go."
---
The Fox News crew packed up the van and drove off. Lawson had Franklin burn him a copy of the raw footage, then got dropped off a few blocks away.
By the time he swapped his face back and walked through the front doors of the Bonanno estate, it was past eight o'clock at night.
Audrey was waiting for him in the foyer.
Over the last few days, she'd been greeting him at the door like clockwork—honestly, she was more punctual than the actual estate butler.
"Mr. Lawson! You're finally back!"
She immediately latched onto him, chattering endlessly about everything that had happened at the estate that day.
Lawson listened, genuinely surprised by the corporate mutiny.
"No kidding. Where's the Madam now?"
Audrey's bright expression shifted into something a little weirder.
"Mr. Pastore took Sofia and Eva out earlier this afternoon. They still aren't back."
Right as the words left her mouth, the heavy front doors swung open. Sofia and Eva walked in.
"Lawson?"
Sofia looked utterly exhausted. Her mental state was visibly fragile, completely drained of the fierce mob-boss energy she'd wielded earlier that day.
"What happened?" Lawson asked, his tone sharpening.
Sofia lowered her eyes, her voice hollow.
"Lawson... let's go upstairs. I'll tell you."
Lawson could feel the heavy, depressive energy rolling off her. He nodded.
"What are we talking about? Can I come?" Audrey immediately tried to force her way into the conversation, refusing to leave Lawson's side.
Thankfully, Eva knew exactly what was going on. She smoothly intercepted the teenager, grabbing her arm.
"Audrey, didn't you want to hear another one of my stories? Let's go do that right now!"
"Ah! Eva, wait! It's not even my bedtime yet!"
No matter how hard Audrey struggled, she was an eighteen-year-old girl fighting a professional assassin. Eva effortlessly dragged her off to a guest room, shutting the door behind them.
Lawson and Sofia headed straight to the master bedroom.
The second the door clicked shut, Sofia collapsed onto the bed, rested her head in his lap, and started crying silently.
It was a jarring reaction. Lawson frowned.
"Sofia, talk to me. What exactly happened today?"
After crying into his legs for a long moment, she finally looked up, her makeup slightly smeared.
"This afternoon, Luca took me to St. Mary's Cathedral. He made me stand in front of the altar and swear an oath to Jesus Christ that I would never remarry. He said if I took the vow, he would officially hand over total control of the Bonanno family to me."
---
Late night. A high-end lounge in San Gabriel.
This club was the crown jewel of Antonio Costa's territory. He practically lived here, conducting all his illicit business from the VIP booths.
Lately, though, Antonio was in a spectacularly foul mood, spending his nights drinking himself into a dark stupor.
With Francis freezing the family's liquid assets, Antonio couldn't pull his usual cash advance on his street tax.
But Frank—the cartel hitman—didn't give a shit about the Bonanno family's internal cash flow problems. He had put a bullet in Francis, and he expected to be paid in full.
Desperate, Antonio had called in every favor and scraped together enough loans to pay Frank half his fee upfront. The rest was going to be on a payment plan.
A payment plan with street interest. It was brutal. At this rate, Antonio was basically going to be working for free for the next two years just to clear the debt.
So he sat there, downing cognac and cursing Francis's name, completely ignoring the fact that he was the one who panicked and hired Frank to kill Francis in the first place.
He'd even doubled down and paid Frank a massive premium to finish the job after the first hit at the estate failed.
"Mr. Costa. Someone's here to see you."
Antonio slammed his glass down, glaring drunkenly at his soldier.
"Who?"
"Felice Marino."
"Huh?"
That sobered him up a fraction.
Ever since the blowout at St. Lucy's Church, Antonio and Felice had effectively declared a cold war. They avoided each other like the plague.
Through the haze of the alcohol, Antonio couldn't figure out why the hell Felice was walking into his club.
Seeing his boss hesitate, the soldier offered, "Want me to tell him you're not here?"
Antonio shook his head.
"No. Let him in. This is my house. The fuck do I have to be afraid of?"
The soldier nodded and walked away.
A few minutes later, Felice strolled into the VIP section flanked by two massive enforcers. Seeing Antonio slumped over his drink, Felice smirked.
"Antonio. Drinking alone? Celebrating something?"
Antonio shot him a venomous look.
"If you came here to talk shit, get the fuck out of my club."
The hostility didn't faze Felice. He waved his guards back and sat down directly across from Antonio.
"Get me a glass."
The bartender scrambled to oblige. Felice was a heavy hitter; you didn't keep a capo like that waiting.
Felice grabbed Antonio's bottle of cognac and poured himself a generous measure.
They sat in tense silence, taking a drink. Then, Felice spoke.
"How long has it been since we sat down and had a drink like this?"
The question caught Antonio off guard, triggering a sudden wave of nostalgia. Old mobsters loved to reminisce, especially when they were halfway to the bottom of a bottle.
After a long pause, Antonio looked at him with bloodshot eyes.
"Felice. What do you want?"
"I heard Luca is planning to put that woman in the big chair."
Antonio knew exactly who "that woman" was. He just shrugged. He didn't care.
He had been willing to back Francis if it meant keeping the cash flowing. If Sofia kept the envelopes thick, he'd back her too. As long as he got paid.
But Felice was cut from a different cloth. He was a strict traditionalist.
He reached across the table and violently grabbed Antonio by the jaw, forcing eye contact.
Every guard in the room instantly reached for their iron.
Antonio raised a hand, waving his men off. He knew Felice wasn't making a move on his life.
"Antonio! How long are you going to sit here feeling sorry for yourself?" Felice hissed. "We built this family with Old Martin! We bled for this thing! And you're just going to hand the keys over to a fucking trophy wife?"
Felice had accepted Francis as Boss because Francis had actually put in the work. He had been the family Consigliere for years. He knew the business inside and out.
But Sofia? Before Old Martin had his stroke, her biggest responsibility was picking out designer curtains. She had done absolutely nothing to earn her stripes.
Stepping up during a crisis for a few days didn't mean shit to a veteran like Felice. He would never accept Luca's decision.
Antonio let out a bitter laugh, pushing Felice's hand away. He knew exactly what this was. Felice wanted the throne.
The ambition had probably always been there, quietly simmering until Little Martin got iced and Old Martin became a vegetable.
"Felice. Even if Luca backs Sofia, what the fuck are you gonna do about it?"
Luca held the most respect on the street. Unless Antonio and Felice combined their crews, Luca was untouchable.
"We team up."
Antonio rubbed his ears. The alcohol was definitely fucking with his hearing.
"What did you just say?"
Felice leaned in, eyes burning.
"I said, we team up. You and me."
"Are you out of your mind? Why the hell would I back you?"
Felice stared him dead in the eye, his expression stone-cold serious.
"Because I'd rather see you sitting at the head of the table than that bitch. Look, Antonio, I know you don't have the stomach to be Boss forever. So, why don't we run this thing like the President of the United States? We put a term limit on the big chair."
Felice let that sink in before delivering the hook.
"I'll back your claim to be the first Boss. You take the throne for three, maybe five years. When your term is up, you step down and hand the gavel to me. Let me have a turn. Deal?"
That proposition hit Antonio like a freight train.
If he became the Boss of the Bonanno family, he could skim enough off the top to pay Frank off in a month. Hell, he'd make an absolute fortune.
And if they merged their crews, they absolutely had the muscle to crush Luca.
"You'd actually back me to be the Boss?"
"On my mother's eyes. But we put it in writing. A blood oath. After your term is up, you step aside."
Felice knew Antonio wasn't deeply ambitious, but power is a hell of a drug. He needed an ironclad guarantee Antonio wouldn't refuse to leave once he got comfortable.
Antonio closed his eyes, his mind racing. He needed the money. He needed the power. He opened his eyes, his face set with vicious resolve.
"Done. I'm in."
Antonio grabbed the bottle and topped off both their glasses. He raised his.
"To our new partnership."
"To our partnership."
They clinked glasses and downed the cognac in one burning gulp.
"So," Antonio wiped his mouth. "Where do we start?"
Felice grinned, a nasty, predatory look.
"I've had eyes inside the estate for a while. One of the maids. Word is, the widow has a little Asian boy-toy following her around. They're definitely fucking. We use that."