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Stone and Jack were nearing the stairs to the uptown trains when a mass of commuters surged into the main passageway from the steps.

Stone tried to stay close to Jack, but a group of teenagers blundered between them, forcing Stone to weave his way around.

By the time he caught sight of Jack again, Jack was standing in the middle of a crowd, looking all around.

“What’s wrong?” Stone asked.

Jack lifted his hands.

Both were empty.

“Someone whispered, ‘I’m here for the case,’ then grabbed it away before I could see who it was.”

“Man or woman?”

“A woman.”

As Stone spun around, searching for a woman with a briefcase, he said, “Dino, are you still there?”

“Still here,” Dino said via Stone’s ear pod.

“If you didn’t catch what Jack said, a woman took the case, but Jack didn’t see who.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Dino said, “but handing the briefcase over was the plan.”

“It was. I just…”

“Want to know who took it?”

“Yes.”

“Have you forgotten about the tracker?”

“Oh, right.” Stone had.

“Why didn’t you mention that sooner?”

Stone opened the tracking app and saw that the dot representing the bug was about twenty yards away in the opposite direction.

He relayed the information to Dino, who could pass the info to Watkins through Strategic Services comm gear, then signaled to Jack, “This way.”

Rosa could not believe her luck.

She’d been waiting for the right moment to approach Fratelli, when a large group of arriving passengers swelled the crowd.

She hurried forward, skirted around the group of teens who’d cut off Barrington, then sneaked in behind Fratelli.

Within seconds, she had the briefcase and had inserted herself into the crowd that was heading away from the Seventh Avenue exit.

If she were to follow her brother’s instruction to a T, she would have immediately descended to the uptown-bound platform and caught the number 1 train as soon as possible.

But while catching the 1 train was still her plan, there was something she needed to do first.

She stayed in the crowd until she was as close to the restroom as she could get, then dashed into the room and locked herself in a stall.

She stood still until she was sure no one had followed her in, then set the briefcase on the toilet seat and opened it.

Though she knew what would be inside, the sight of all those bundles of hundred-dollar bills still drew a gasp from her lungs.

She reminded herself there’d be time to admire them later, then unzipped the duffel not containing her new clothes.

Inside were ninety wrapped packets of one-dollar bills and ten packets of one-dollar bills with a single hundred-dollar bill at the top, all of which she’d withdrawn from her bank.

Working quickly, she exchanged the packets from the duffel for the packets in the briefcase.

For the top layer, she used the bundles with the single one-hundred-dollar bills.

She thought it highly unlikely Ricky would check the contents while she was around.

Even if he did, he wouldn’t do more than glance inside, and he’d see exactly what he wanted to see—a briefcase full of hundreds.

By the time he realized the truth, she’d be long gone.

Of course, she could have left town at that moment and skipped bringing him the briefcase altogether.

But this wasn’t about the money—as happy as she was to have it.

This was about making Ricky suffer.

To do that, he needed to think he had his precious cash and that all his dreams were about to come true.

Then, when he discovered what she’d done, he would be destroyed.

As she started to close the case, she realized she’d almost forgotten the flash drive.

She retrieved the cheap one she’d picked up, put it in the envelope the real drive had been in, and set the envelope on top of the cash.

The drive from Fratelli she put into her purse.

She knew nothing about Bitcoin and was more than a little worried any attempt to use the drive could be tracked.

But she certainly wasn’t going to leave it so her brother could get his hands on the money to which it might be linked.

She checked the time on her phone.

She’d been in the restroom for seven minutes.

She also saw that she had fifteen missed calls and nearly as many texts from her brother.

She closed the briefcase.

Time to finish this and get out of town.

Gennaro was gripping his cell so tightly that he nearly dropped it out of surprise when his sister finally called back.

“What the hell, Rosa?” he said.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“I was a little busy getting your stupid briefcase.”

He paused.

“You did get it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“What took so—” He stopped himself.

“You know what? Never mind. Are you on the train yet?”

“I’m heading to the platform now. I’ll get the first one I can.”

“Just hurry, all right?”

This time, she was the one who hung up on him.

“Dammit, Rosa!”

He shoved his phone into his pocket and hurried down the stairs into the Columbus Circle station.

He found Toomey not far inside, leaning against a wall and scrolling through his phone.

“Come on,” Gennaro said, then headed for the gate.

“Oh, hey, Mr. Gennaro.” Toomey pushed himself off the wall and followed.

They made their way to the uptown platform for the 1 train, where Gennaro took a seat on a bench.

“We catching the next one?” Toomey asked.

“No. We’re meeting someone here, then you’re going to drive me home.”

“Gotcha.” Toomey took a seat at the other end of the bench and started tapping on his phone.

Gennaro’s eyes narrowed.

“What are you doing? Texting someone?”

Toomey looked over.

“Oh, um, yeah. My girlfriend. Thought we might see a movie later.” He paused.

“Unless you’re going to need me to do something else.”

Gennaro relaxed.

“Nah. After you drop me off, you’re free.”

“Cool.”

Miguel looked at his phone and said, “Toomey says Ricky’s waiting for someone at Columbus Circle, then Toomey’s supposed to drive him back to his house.”

“Is that right?” Pinkie said.

“Maybe we should welcome him home.”

“That sounds like a great—”

Miguel’s phone began vibrating again, only this time with a call from someone with a blocked number.

He punched Accept .

“Yeah?”

“I thought you should know that the big score Pinkie’s cousin was after just went down,” the digital voice that had called him twice before said.

“He should be home in about an hour with the goods.”

The line went dead.

“Who was it?” Pinkie asked.

“Our anonymous source again. Said your cousin’s score just happened and he’ll be home in an hour.”

“Toomey didn’t say anything about it happening already.”

“No, but he did say they were meeting someone. Maybe that someone’s the go-between. Either way, waiting for Ricky at his house is sounding like an even better idea now.”