Chapter 6 - The Backroom Ledger
The air in Vincent Coletti’s private office behind the upscale lounge smelled faintly of aged cedar, expensive cigar ash, and dried ink. Warm light spilled from a brass banker’s lamp onto the heavy mahogany desk, casting long shadows across the walls lined with dark wood paneling and leather-bound ledgers. I closed the heavy office door behind me with a soft click, slipping the deadbolt into place. My encounter with Marcus outside my apartment had left a sharp, cold edge humming beneath my skin, a reminder that my old life in Queens was never truly finished as long as ghosts from the circuit could walk uninvited into my neighborhood.
I settled into the swivel chair, my black apron still tied securely around my waist over my crisp white button-down shirt. Vincent trusted me enough to give me access to the backroom administrative files, a level of entry he rarely granted anyone outside his immediate inner circle. My primary task tonight was to audit the weekly security logistics and payroll disbursement, reconciling the cash receipts from the front bar against the ledger entries recorded by Dominic Russo. Dominic had managed the lounge's daily books for nearly two years, running the floor with an iron grip and a sneering sense of territorial pride that had nearly sparked a full-scale brawl over a dropped whiskey bottle just days ago.
As I flipped through the heavy parchment pages of the current month’s ledger, my fingers traced the columns of figures. At first glance, everything appeared standard: liquor licensing fees, maintenance overhead, security retainers, and bartender tips. But as I cross-referenced the entries with the electronic transaction logs pulled from the venue's safe, a distinct discrepancy caught my eye. On three separate Friday nights when the lounge was operating at full capacity with packed red leather booths and overflowing tables, the recorded cash deposits were down by nearly twenty percent compared to the actual credit card volume and door counts.
May you like
I pulled a small notepad closer, jotting down the dates and serial numbers. The missing funds didn't add up to a simple accounting error. The numbers had been systematically shaved off the top before being logged, a classic skimming operation designed to siphon cash right out from under Vincent's nose. The handwriting in the margins of those specific dates belonged unmistakably to Dominic, his heavy, slanted strokes pressing hard into the paper. A cold knot tightened in my stomach. Dominic wasn't just protective of his position; he was systematically stealing from the man who fed him, betting that Vincent's sprawling operations were too large for minor ledger discrepancies to surface.
The gravity of what I held in my hands settled over me like a physical weight. If Dominic discovered that a newcomer, a bartender pulled from the floor and tested in an underground boxing ring, had uncovered his theft, he wouldn't hesitate to eliminate the liability. Yet turning a blind eye meant becoming an accomplice to a betrayal that went against every code of survival and loyalty I respected. I slid the ledger pages out of the binding, folding them neatly into a small square that slipped easily into the inner pocket of my shirt. I had the proof. Now I had to decide how and when to hand it to Vincent before Dominic realized his margin of error had run out.
