Chapter 2 - THE SEDAN ON 34TH STREET
Elena did not drop the photograph.
Her thumb traced the white border until the paper bent.
Her breath came in thin, shallow gasps that misted in the cold air.
The rain was picking up, tapping against the black umbrella held by the gatekeeper ten feet behind them.
Dante did not step back.
His eyes never left her face.
“I asked you a question, Elena.”
“I don’t know who he is,” she whispered.
“Look at his jacket.”
Elena held the picture up to the gatehouse halogen light.
The stranger wore a dark work jacket with a faded circular patch on the left shoulder.
A white crane over blue waves.
Her stomach dropped into freefall.
“Harbor Transport,” she breathed.
“Your father’s old employer,” Dante stated.
It was not a question.
Dante knew.
He had known all along.
Eleven months she had worked under his roof, believing she was invisible.
She believed she was just another quiet girl in a black skirt clearing bone china.
“My father died six years ago, Mr. Moretti.”
“I know when Thomas Brooks died.”
“Then why are his former associates standing outside my mother’s lobby?”
Dante took the photograph from her fingers and slipped it back into the envelope.
“Because three days ago, the Port Authority unsealed Warehouse Nine.”
Elena went completely still.
Her knuckles ached around the leather handle of her suitcase.
Warehouse Nine was where her father had taken his last shift before his heart stopped on the asphalt.
The company had called it cardiac arrest.
Her mother had spent six years paying off medical bills from an ambulance that arrived forty minutes too late.
“What was inside Warehouse Nine?” Elena asked.
“Eighty million dollars in unrefined diamonds,” Dante said.
The silence that followed was louder than the rain.
“The Caldwell contract,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Vanessa’s family.”
“Yes.”
Elena gave a short, bitter laugh that caught in her throat.
“And you think my father took them?”
“Your father didn’t take anything, Elena.”
Dante took half a step forward.
The distance between them closed until she could smell the cedarwood and rain on his shirt.
“Your father was the chief safety inspector who refused to sign the manifest.”
“He was murdered,” she whispered.
The word sounded foreign.
It tasted like copper on her tongue.
“Yes,” Dante said softly.
“And you let Vanessa stand in your dining room and call me a thief.”
Dante’s jaw shifted, a muscle jumping beneath his stubble.
“If I intervened at the table, Marcus wouldn’t have had time to copy her phone.”
“You used me as bait.”
“I gave you an exit.”
“By letting your guests watch me choke on their pity?”
Her voice rose, sharp and cracking against the stone pillars.
“My mother is sitting alone on the third floor of a walk-up while a killer watches her door!”
Dante did not raise his voice.
He reached down and gently loosened her frozen fingers from the suitcase handle.
He took the bag in his right hand.
“Your mother is not alone, Elena.”
She blinked, water blurring her eyelashes.
“What?”
“Marcus picked her up twenty minutes ago.”
Dante reached into his pocket and pulled out his private phone.
He tapped the screen and held it out.
The display showed a live video feed from an armored Mercedes moving through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
In the back seat sat Martha Brooks, wrapped in a dark cashmere blanket, holding a paper cup of tea.
Her mother looked bewildered, but she was breathing evenly.
Beside her sat Marcus Bell, his heavy frame filling the leather seat, his eyes scanning the tunnel traffic.
Elena’s knees buckled.
The relief hit her with such physical force that she would have struck the wet gravel if Dante hadn’t caught her elbow.
His hand was warm through her thin wool coat.
Firm.
Immovable.
“She’s safe,” Dante whispered near her temple.
“Where is he taking her?”
“To the safe house in Bedford.”
Elena pulled her arm away, finding her balance against the iron gate.
“And me?”
“You’re getting in the car with me.”
“Why?”
“Because the man outside your mother’s building didn't leave when Marcus took her.”
Dante pocketed the phone.
His dark eyes turned toward the empty, winding country road beyond the gates.
Two sets of high beams flickered through the wet trees half a mile down the drive.
Vehicles approaching fast.
Too fast for guests who had just left a dinner party.
“He called reinforcements,” Dante said, his voice dropping into cold authority.
“And they aren't coming to negotiate.”
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The sharp crack of a high-powered rifle shattered the night.
The gatehouse light exploded above their heads in a shower of white sparks.
