Chapter 6 - The Butcher Shop Siege
Dominic read Marco’s name twice.
Riley took the phone.
“That doesn’t prove he accepted.”
“It came through the internal contract system.”
“Which Victor has already compromised.”
Dominic looked at her.
She was right.
He hated that hope could be more dangerous than suspicion.
Marco had been beside him for fourteen years.
Brother in every way except blood.
Yet Dominic had learned young that betrayal rarely came from strangers.
They found Marco at the burned butcher shop.
He was standing in the ruins.
Dominic aimed his pistol.
Marco slowly raised his hands.
“I didn’t take the contract.”
“Your code did.”
“My phone was cloned.”
“Convenient.”
Marco looked at Riley.
“Tell him.”
“Why me?”
“Because he’s stopped thinking clearly since you put a knife against his throat.”
Dominic almost shot him for that alone.
Riley stepped between them.
“Show us your phone.”
Marco did.
A second device had been hidden beneath his car.
Victor had cloned his authentication token.
Dominic lowered the weapon.
Marco looked offended.
“You owe me an apology.”
“No.”
“Worth trying.”
They searched the wreckage.
The old scale had survived.
Fire had blackened the wood, but the steel mechanism remained.
Riley picked it up.
Something rattled.
Another compartment.
Inside was a small cassette tape.
Her father’s handwriting covered the label.
FOR RILEY — IF DANIEL’S SON FINDS YOU.
Dominic stared.
Riley found an old player in the apartment above the neighboring bakery.
Ethan’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“Riley, if you’re hearing this, I failed.”
Her breath caught.
“Daniel Castelli is not my enemy. If Daniel is dead, his son may believe everything his family built belongs to him. It doesn’t. Some of it belongs to the people Victor destroyed.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Project Harbor has one master record. I moved it before Victor reached me.”
Ethan coughed.
“Riley, don’t trust anyone who tells you Daniel was the only Castelli trying to stop Victor.”
Dominic looked up.
The tape continued.
“There was another.”
Static.
Then footsteps sounded on the recording.
Ethan whispered:
“She knows.”
The tape ended.
Riley replayed it.
Same ending.
She knows.
“Who?” Riley asked.
Dominic already suspected.
His mother.
They returned to Elena’s safe location.
Empty.
A chair overturned.
Blood on the floor.
Not much.
Enough.
On the wall someone had written:
PIER 17.
Dominic swore.
Riley found Elena’s purse.
Inside was a photograph.
Daniel.
Ethan.
Victor.
And Elena.
All four standing at Pier 17.
On the back, Ethan had written a date.
The night Daniel Castelli died.
Riley looked at Dominic.
“Your mother was there.”
Dominic said nothing.
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A woman breathed on the other end.
Then Elena whispered:
“Dominic, don’t come to Pier 17.”
“Mother?”
“Victor isn’t the one you should be afraid of.”
A man spoke somewhere beside her.
May you like
Elena gasped.
Then, before the connection died, she whispered the name of the person who had really ordered Daniel Castelli’s murder...
