177a Bleecker Street New York Novels & Stories

I snatched them from her hands before she could process it, the crinkle of paper deafening in the heavy silence. I scanned the address. Isaac. Lower Manhattan. Greenwich Village.

SOLANE I saw them kill a man, and they let me live. That should have been the end of the story. A wrong turn down a service alley behind the Marchetti-owned restaurant on Bleecker Street, a door that should have been locked but wasn’t, and suddenly I was standing in a concrete room watching a man on his knees with a bag over his head and two identical faces turning toward me like wolves catching a scent.

“Haven Tower, East 78th Street, Upper East Side.” Her apartment at The Haven Tower on East 78th was only a few streets from Ezra’s estate, The Belmont Estate on East 74th Street. It wasn’t just close, it was intentional. Ezra wanted her near enough to reach her within minutes, yet far enough that no one would suspect she was close to him.

But I was going to find out. I pulled out my phone. Opened the search bar. Typed the three letters that had haunted my dreams for seven days. **A.B.** The address for Black Enterprises came up immediately. Gleaming tower in midtown Manhattan. Forty-seven floors of power and money and people who would never look twice at someone like me. I stared at it for a long moment. Then I started walking.

ETHAN I was in a meeting when my assistant knocked on the door. "Mr. Hoss, I'm sorry to interrupt. There's breaking news you should see." She handed me her tablet. “BREAKING: Explosion at Upper East Side Residential Building. Car Bomb Suspected.” I read the headline, irritated at the interruption. "Why does this concern me?" "The building address, sir. 740 Park Avenue." My stomach dropped. That was Vanessa Latham's building. I took the tablet, reading quickly.

Family Court – 9:03 AM The Family Court of New York State occupied the sixth floor of a nondescript government building on Lafayette Street, its bland institutional interior at odds with the life-altering decisions rendered daily within its walls. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everyone in the unflattering pallor that seemed reserved for places where human suffering was processed with bureaucratic efficiency.

I took the call with my tone sounding at least several tones lighter than usual. “You need to get back to New York. Now.” Unlike mine, Grayson's voice couldn't be more tense and nervous. “What happened?” I braced myself for the upcoming blow. “It's about Brooklyn Heights,” he started and sucked in a shaky breath. “Three floors were completely destroyed. Ten people are dead.”

“It was the name we gave the boy when he was born. Then Dr. Hansen must have changed it.” “Let’s not stray from the topic,” Mark interrupted. “Where is that apartment?” “On Atlantic Avenue, I don’t know the name or number of the building, but it’s the only small diagonal to the subway station. The apartment is 6-B on the sixth floor. If the elderly are there they may help her, and if they are traveling she also has access to it because she takes care of it. If she was at home this morning, it means she shouldn’t be taking care of it.”