The Capozzi Family: Joey #1

Tommy’s car rolls to a stop under a sputtering neon sign. Ahead, the apartment complex looks half-abandoned, all cracked stucco and dark windows. The mole’s sedan sits crooked in the lot, hood still faintly warm.

Vicky checks her weapon once, then again, jaw set hard. Tommy leans forward, eyes on the entrance and the shadowed corners around it, hunting for cameras. Joey has the address, the car, and the trail. This is the lead that takes them from suspicion to the man behind the leak.

A second-floor curtain twitches. Somewhere inside, a lock clicks. The building feels suddenly awake, like it knows it has been found.

Vicky shifts toward the entrance, Tommy covering her angle, and Joey stands with the address in hand as the hunt becomes a direct confrontation with the mole’s doorstep.

Joey lifts two fingers, then hooks a thumb toward Vicky, giving her the front while he angles himself toward the rear lot. Tommy catches the signal and shifts his weight, already turning his body to cover the stairwell and the alley between units.

Vicky moves out first, weapon low but ready, while Joey drifts along the car’s shadow line toward the back of the building. The address sheet stays in his hand, crumpled tighter now, the numbers on it matching the unit row ahead.

A side window on the ground floor glows for a second, then goes dark. From the rear corridor, a door slams somewhere inside the complex, and footsteps scrape fast across tile.

Joey reaches the back side of the building as the narrow service lane opens into view. The escape route is there, but so is a fresh trail of movement heading deeper into the unit stack.

Joey cups his hand and calls into the service lane, sharp and casual, like he is just another guy in the building. His voice bounces off the concrete corridor.

A door inside the units clicks open. Footsteps stop, then turn toward the sound.

Vicky freezes at the front entrance, weapon lifting higher as she catches the movement line.

Tommy edges into a better angle by the stairwell, eyes locked on the windows, ready to cut off any retreat.

From the darkened unit row, a man’s shadow crosses the blind, drawn straight toward Vicky's side of the building.

Joey slips along the wall and reaches the side exit before the shadow clears the corridor. The service door sits ahead of him, half lit, with the paper address sheet crushed in his hand.

He takes the angle and blocks the escape route, shoulders squared toward the door, listening for the first pull on the latch.

Inside the unit row, footsteps hesitate. The moving shape has to choose, door or window, and Joey now owns the door.

A scrape sounds behind the side door, then the knob twitches under an unseen hand.

Joey catches the knob before it can turn fully, his palm clamping hard over cold metal. The latch jerks once under the hidden hand on the other side, then stops.

The door shudders against his grip. Somewhere inside the unit row, a breath catches, and the shadow in the hallway freezes.

Joey twists the knob back and pins it shut, turning the exit into a dead stop.

Inside, movement scatters deeper into the apartment, fast and panicked, but the way out is already checked.

Joey yanks the door open and drives in on the first man he sees, catching him by the jacket before he can bolt deeper into the unit.

The mole slams back into the kitchenette counter, air punching out of him, his phone skittering across the floor and stopping under the table.

Tommy steps into the doorway behind the landing zone, keeping the hall blocked while Joey holds the mole pinned against the cabinets.

A cheap lamp tips over in the scramble, buzzing out and throwing the room into harsher shadow.

The mole twists hard, but he is cornered, one arm trapped and the apartment sealed around him.