Chapter 6 - THE FORGER’S HAND
The rocking of the boat felt sickening.
Elena backed into the corner of the cabin, her shoulder hitting the wooden frame of the bunk.
Her hand stayed deep inside her coat pocket.
Her fingers closed around the only weapon she had—a small, stainless-steel paring knife she had used to cut lemons in the mansion kitchen.
It felt ridiculous.
Useless against a man who ran half the eastern seaboard.
Dante looked at her pocket.
He saw the tension in her knuckles through the wool.
He didn't move toward her.
He didn't reach for his gun.
“If I wanted sarin gas, Elena, I wouldn't ship it through my own docks on an October evening.”
“Your name is on the manifest!” she cried.
“My father said it!”
“Your father read what was printed on the paper,” Dante said evenly.
He reached across the table, took the dictaphone from Mrs. Russo’s hand, and hit rewind.
The tape whined for three seconds.
He pressed play again.
“The shipment was ordered through a private shell company.
A company registered to Moretti Enterprises.
Signed by Dante Moretti.”
Dante stopped the tape.
“What was the date your father recorded that?”
Elena’s jaw tightened. “October 18th, 2018.”
“On October 18th, 2018, I was in a federal holding cell in lower Manhattan,” Dante said.
He leaned forward, placing his forearms on the table.
“I was held for seventy-two hours on an unsealed racketeering indictment brought by the Southern District.”
“No phone calls.”
“No bail.”
“My attorney wasn't even allowed into the room until October 20th.”
Elena blinked, the anger in her chest faltering against the cold logic of his words.
“Someone used your name while you were locked up,” she said.
“Someone who had access to my private seal,” Dante said.
He looked at Mrs. Russo.
“Clara. Who was the managing director of Moretti Logistics in October 2018?”
Mrs. Russo’s face darkened, lines of deep sorrow cutting into her brow.
“Julian,” she whispered.
Dante’s younger brother.
Elena’s hand slowly loosened around the knife in her pocket.
“Julian?”
“Julian was twenty-six,” Dante said, his voice dropping into a register that made the cabin air feel thin.
“He had gambling debts in Atlantic City.”
“Three million dollars to a syndicate that answers to Caldwell.”
“Caldwell offered to wipe the slate clean if Julian signed five customs waivers using my administrative credentials.”
“And the gas?” Elena asked.
“The gas was never meant to leave the pier,” Dante said.
“It was meant to be ‘discovered’ by federal inspectors the next morning.”
“With my signature on the bill of lading.”
“I was supposed to spend the rest of my life in ADX Florence.”
Elena stared at the table, the full, monstrous scope of the conspiracy unfurling before her.
“Your own brother set you up?”
“Julian was weak,” Dante said, devoid of pity.
“He thought he could play both sides.”
“Then why did my father have to die?”
“Because Thomas Brooks didn't wait for the morning inspectors,” Dante said.
“Your father locked the warehouse gates.”
“He called the Coast Guard from his private radio.”
“If the Coast Guard boarded that ship before the federal agents arrived, Caldwell’s name would have been on the manifest, not mine.”
Dante reached out and picked up her father’s blue notebook.
He turned to the last page.
“Your father saved my life six years ago, Elena.”
“And Caldwell killed him to keep that shipment quiet.”
Elena looked at her aunt.
Clara Russo nodded slowly, tears slipping down her weathered cheeks.
“It’s true, sweetheart,” Clara whispered.
“Julian died two months later in a car crash on the parkway.”
“It wasn't a crash,” Dante corrected coldly.
“Caldwell cut the brake lines on his Porsche.”
The boat slowed, its engine dropping to a low, rhythmic thrum.
Outside the misted windows, the dark silhouette of an old wooden pier emerged from the fog.
An abandoned boatyard on the Jersey shore, surrounded by rusted cranes and sagging corrugated iron sheds.
Paul was waiting on the dock, holding a lantern in the drizzle.
He had abandoned the Continental miles back, taking a secondary transport.
Beside him sat a dark blue utility van, its headlights dark.
“We’re here,” Mrs. Russo said, cutting the ignition.
Dante stood up and offered his hand to Elena.
She looked at his palm.
Calloused.
Scarred across the knuckles.
The hand of a man who dealt in violence, but who had stood between her and a firing squad on a dark bridge.
She took it.
His fingers closed around hers, warm and solid.
“Where are we going now?” she asked.
“To the hospital in Newark,” Dante said.
Her heart leaped into her throat.
“My mother?”
“Martha’s surgery was moved up, Elena.”
“The doctor who was scheduled to operate on her tomorrow morning in Manhattan?”
“Caldwell’s personal physician.”
Dante stepped onto the wooden dock, pulling her up beside him.
May you like
“If Martha Brooks had gone under anesthesia tomorrow at eight a.m.,” Dante said,
“she never would have woken up.”
