Chapter 7 - THE GHOST OF BROOKLYN
The armored Suburban punched through the corrugated steel doors like paper.
Metal shrieked and twisted.
We launched into the blinding gale off the Long Island Sound.
Freezing saltwater sprayed across the windshield in violent sheets.
The road out of the estate was a narrow ribbon of asphalt cut into the cliffs, slick with mud and fallen hemlock branches.
Dante drove like a demon.
His knuckles were white on the leather steering wheel.
His jaw was clenched so hard the muscles jumped beneath his stubble.
In the back seat, Sophie sat wedged between my knees, trembling silently.
I held her head against my chest, covering her ears.
"Mama," she whispered into my sweater.
"Is Bruno in heaven?"
My throat closed up.
Tears burned behind my eyes.
"Bruno is a tough boy, sweetheart," I choked out.
"He's resting."
From the front passenger seat, Teresa reached into her leather handbag.
She pulled out a small velvet pouch and laid it on the center console.
"The Red Hook deed is inside," Teresa said.
Her voice was entirely devoid of tremor.
"Signed by Carlo Moretti twenty-five years ago."
"It requires the bloodline seal to execute the transfer."
Dante glanced at the pouch, then into the rearview mirror at me.
"The medallion," Dante said.
"It has an internal stamp."
"A micro-engraved wax seal hidden inside the casing."
"Miguel knew that?" I asked.
My voice was flat with exhaustion and betrayal.
"Miguel knew everything," Dante replied.
"He was Carlo's son."
"He was trained to run the docks from the time he was twelve."
"Then why did he marry me?" I cried, my voice breaking over the roar of the engine.
"I was a waitress from Queens!"
"My father was a union carpenter!"
"I didn't have money!"
"I didn't have power!"
Dante took a sharp turn, the tires screaming against the wet asphalt as we cleared the estate gates.
"Because you were the only thing in his life that wasn't covered in blood, Elena," Dante said softly.
The words hung in the warm, leather-scented air of the car.
He looked at me in the mirror again.
His gray eyes were dark, unreadable, but filled with an intensity that made my pulse jump.
"Miguel wanted something clean."
"He wanted someone who didn't look at him and see an empire."
"And he died for it," I whispered.
"No," Teresa spoke up from the front.
"He died because he trusted his brother."
Dante’s hands tightened on the wheel.
"What did you say, Mother?"
Teresa turned her head toward her son.
The faint green glow of the dashboard lights carved deep, ancient lines into her aristocratic face.
"Miguel didn't go to that bakery to hide, Dante."
"He went there to meet Lucian."
"Lucian told him he wanted to make peace."
"He told Miguel he had a ticket to Costa Rica."
Teresa looked back toward the rear window at the dark highway behind us.
"Miguel brought eighty thousand dollars in cash to help his brother escape."
"And Lucian put two bullets in the back of his head while he was ordering coffee."
Sophie let out a small, muffled gasp against my ribs.
I wrapped my arms tighter around my daughter, burying my face into her dark curls.
A monster.
A monster who wore their family's face had sat in my kitchen, eaten my husband's bread, and then executed him on a public sidewalk for a scrap of paper.
Dante’s breathing turned into a low, terrifying hiss.
"Where is the terminal, Dante?" I asked.
My tears had stopped.
The trembling in my hands had vanished.
Something cold, sharp, and ancient had settled into my marrow.
The same survival instinct that had kept me alive with ninety-three dollars in my account for three years.
"Pier 4," Dante said.
"Under the Brooklyn Bridge."
"The old cold-storage warehouse."
"Is that where the vault is?"
"Yes."
"Then drive faster," I said.
Dante looked in the rearview mirror.
For the first time that night, a faint, wolfish smirk touched the corner of his lips.
"Hold on, Elena."
He slammed his foot to the floorboards.
The three-ton SUV surged forward onto the Long Island Expressway, cutting through the blizzard toward Brooklyn at one hundred and ten miles per hour.
Behind us, two miles back through the sheets of rain, three pairs of high-intensity halogen headlights appeared on the empty highway.
May you like
Accelerating.
Closing the gap with every second.
