Chapter 7 - What Her Father Had Hidden
“Anthony Valente.”
Dominic lowered the phone.
Riley frowned.
“Tony’s father?”
Anthony Valente had supposedly died twelve years earlier.
Tony had inherited nothing except a reputation for being useful and cruel.
Dominic had always believed the elder Valente was a minor operator.
Elena had just changed that.
They investigated the old records.
Anthony had not died.
He had disappeared.
His death certificate had been signed by Samuel Kline.
Riley stared at it.
“Another fake record.”
Dominic nodded.
Victor wasn’t the architect.
He was a partner.
Anthony Valente was Harbor’s invisible owner.
Tony’s arrogance suddenly made sense.
He had never considered himself Dominic’s employee.
He considered Dominic the temporary occupant of an empire his father intended to reclaim.
Pier 17 was a trap.
They went anyway.
But Riley made the plan.
That irritated Dominic.
“You’re not trained.”
“You walked into my butcher shop and ended up face-first on my table.”
Marco coughed to hide laughter.
Dominic stared at him.
“Something funny?”
“Nothing.”
At Pier 17, they found Elena tied inside an empty container.
Alive.
Victor stood beside her.
Unarmed.
“Dominic.”
Dominic aimed his gun.
Victor raised both hands.
“I didn’t take her.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because Anthony is coming.”
Victor looked twenty years older.
He confessed.
Harbor had begun as smuggling.
Then Anthony expanded it into human trafficking.
Daniel wanted out.
Ethan gathered evidence.
Victor had helped Anthony poison them because Anthony threatened Victor’s children.
Cowardice, Victor admitted.
Not innocence.
Dominic wanted to kill him.
Riley stopped him.
“Dead men don’t testify.”
Victor looked at her.
“Ethan said you’d be difficult.”
“Good.”
Victor revealed the master record.
Ethan had hidden it in a cold-storage facility registered under Riley’s mother’s maiden name.
They drove there.
Unit 36.
Riley opened it.
Boxes filled the room.
Records.
Photographs.
Shipping manifests.
Enough evidence to destroy Harbor.
Dominic stared.
“My father knew.”
“He tried to stop it,” Riley said.
Dominic looked at her.
“And yours died helping him.”
For the first time, the legacy between their families was not criminal.
It was sacrifice.
Riley found a sealed envelope addressed to her.
Inside was a letter from Ethan.
He told her he was sorry.
He had wanted her nowhere near his mistakes.
He had kept the evidence because destroying it would allow the victims to disappear twice—first from their homes, then from history.
Riley cried silently.
Dominic stood beside her but didn’t touch her until she reached for his hand.
Then he held it.
No power.
No threat.
Just a hand.
A noise came from the freezer corridor.
Dominic released her.
Marco raised his gun.
The cold-storage door opened.
Tony Valente stepped inside.
But he wasn’t alone.
Behind him stood a gray-haired man Riley recognized from an old photograph.
May you like
Anthony Valente smiled.
“Thank you for finding my records...”
