Chapter 2 - Beneath Bay Three
Dante's hand disappeared inside his jacket.
"Don't."
He looked at me.
"You've got someone under your floor."
"I heard."
"Then get behind me."
"This is my garage."
"And that's my gun."
I stared at him.
"Congratulations."
The knocking came again.
Three.
Pause.
Two.
My pulse stumbled.
I hadn't heard that rhythm since I was twenty-two.
My father used it whenever he came home after midnight.
Three knocks.
Two knocks.
It meant safe.
At least it used to.
Dante watched my face.
"You know that signal."
"I knew someone who used it."
"Your father?"
I hated him for being right so quickly.
"Stay here."
"No."
"Dante—"
"I'm not standing outside while you open a secret floor compartment after somebody shot at me with ammunition marked with your garage initials."
"Nobody asked you to follow me."
"And yet here we are."
I grabbed the steel bar hanging beside Bay Three.
Dante drew his pistol.
The floor panel was hidden beneath an old rubber mat.
I dragged the mat aside.
The garage suddenly felt too quiet.
Every sound became enormous.
The scrape of rubber.
The hum of fluorescent lights.
The click of Dante's safety.
My own breathing.
I inserted the steel bar into a narrow seam and pulled.
A rectangular panel rose two inches.
Cool air breathed through the gap.
Dante moved beside me.
"Let me."
"No."
"You really do have a problem taking orders."
"Only from men who think expensive suits make them useful."
This time he actually smiled.
Briefly.
Then the panel opened.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
Dante aimed downward.
"Who's there?"
Silence.
I switched on the lower light.
Nothing happened.
The bulb had burned out.
Of course it had.
I reached for the flashlight on the wall.
Dante caught my wrist.
"Behind me."
I pulled free.
"My father built this room."
"And your father isn't here."
The words hurt more than they should have.
Dante saw it.
His expression softened for half a second.
Then the man who ran half the city's illegal gambling rooms returned.
"Fine. Beside me."
We went down together.
The hidden room wasn't large.
Concrete walls.
Metal shelving.
A worktable.
Old racing trophies.
Boxes of invoices.
A locked steel cabinet.
And a folding chair.
The chair was occupied.
I nearly dropped the flashlight.
"Tommy?"
My younger brother lifted his head.
His lip was split.
One eye had swollen almost shut.
His wrists were tied with electrical cable.
"Lee?"
I rushed toward him.
Dante caught my shoulder.
"Check the room first."
"That's my brother."
"The brother you don't have?"
"Not now."
I swept the flashlight around.
Empty.
No movement.
No second exit.
I knelt beside Tommy.
He was twenty-six but looked sixteen when he was scared.
"Who did this?"
"I don't know."
"How did you get in?"
"They had the key."
"What key?"
"Bay Three."
I looked at Dante.
He was already looking at me.
"How long?"
Tommy swallowed.
"Maybe an hour."
"Did they say anything?"
"They asked about Dad."
My stomach tightened.
"What about him?"
"They wanted his ledger."
I stopped cutting the cable.
"What ledger?"
Tommy laughed weakly.
"That's what I said."
Dante crouched beside us.
"What did they look like?"
Tommy's gaze locked on him.
Fear replaced pain.
"Jesus."
"It's okay."
"That's Dante Moretti."
"I know."
"What is he doing here?"
Dante answered.
"Wondering why men who shot at me tonight came here asking about your dead father."
Tommy stared at me.
"Lee, what did you do?"
"Nothing."
Dante stood.
"Your family likes that answer."
I cut the final cable.
Tommy rubbed his wrists.
Then he looked toward the steel cabinet.
"They tried to open that."
My father had welded the cabinet himself.
I knew because I'd watched him do it.
He had told me it contained racing records.
Nothing important.
Nothing worth opening.
After he died, I had tried once.
The lock was strange.
No visible keyhole.
No combination dial.
Just a small brass plate engraved with the number 317.
Dante saw it.
His face went still.
"Open it."
"I can't."
"Try."
"I have."
"Try again."
I stood.
"You're becoming very comfortable giving orders in my garage."
"You're becoming very comfortable pretending you don't understand what's happening."
"I don't."
"Somebody fired marked ammunition at my crew. Somebody followed you here. Somebody beat your brother and asked about a ledger belonging to your father. And a locked cabinet in your secret basement carries the same number engraved on the shell casing."
He stepped toward me.
"You're in this whether you understand it or not."
I wanted to argue.
I couldn't.
Tommy sat against the wall.
"Lee."
"What?"
"The key."
"What key?"
"The one Dad left you."
My body went cold.
Dante's gaze sharpened.
I looked at Tommy.
"You knew?"
"I saw you find it."
Eight months earlier.
Under Bay Three.
Wrapped in wax paper.
A small black key with no teeth.
I had put it in a coffee tin above the office ceiling because something about it frightened me.
I didn't know why.
Maybe because Dad had spent his last month alive telling me not to trust people who came asking about old debts.
Maybe because three days before his death, someone had broken into the garage and stolen nothing.
Maybe because my father died in what police called a single-car accident despite being the best driver I'd ever known.
I climbed upstairs.
Dante followed.
The coffee tin was still there.
Inside lay the key.
Dante stared at it.
"That's not a normal key."
"No."
"What opens?"
I looked toward the basement.
"We're about to find out."
The brass plate on the cabinet contained a magnetic slot invisible unless you knew where to press.
The key fit.
A soft click echoed through the room.
Tommy stopped breathing.
I opened the door.
Inside were four things.
A leather ledger.
A revolver wrapped in cloth.
An old photograph.
And a cassette recorder.
Dante reached for the photograph first.
I got there before him.
My father stood in the center.
Younger.
Smiling.
One arm around a man I recognized as Dante's late father, Carlo Moretti.
The other around someone whose face had been scratched out with a knife.
"What the hell?"
Dante took the photograph.
"My father knew yours."
Apparently.
Carlo Moretti had died nine years earlier.
Heart attack, according to newspapers.
Dante had inherited the organization at twenty-eight and spent the next decade transforming a chaotic criminal empire into something colder, quieter, and more profitable.
My father never mentioned him.
Not once.
Dante opened the ledger.
His expression hardened.
"What?"
He didn't answer.
I took it.
Rows of dates.
Payments.
License plates.
Dock numbers.
Police badge numbers.
Politicians.
Judges.
Names I recognized from television.
Then one I recognized for another reason.
MORETTI, CARLO.
Beside it:
Protected transfer — Harbor 17.
Another name appeared repeatedly.
VICTOR SALVI.
I had heard that name.
Everyone in Boston had.
Victor Salvi owned restaurants, construction companies, private clubs, and enough politicians to never receive parking tickets.
He was also Dante's biggest rival.
Dante turned pages faster.
"Your father kept records."
"Of what?"
"Everything."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
That was the first time Dante Moretti said those words and sounded like he hated them.
Tommy pointed toward the recorder.
"Maybe Dad tells us."
The cassette inside was labeled:
LENA — ONLY IF THEY COME BACK.
My throat closed.
My name.
My father's handwriting.
I sat down.
For six years, I had wanted one more conversation with him.
Now I was afraid to have it.
Dante placed the recorder on the table.
"You don't have to play it now."
I looked at him.
That surprised me.
"Yes, I do."
I pressed PLAY.
Static.
Then my father's voice.
Older.
Tired.
Alive.
"Lena, if you're hearing this, I failed."
I covered my mouth.
Tommy looked away.
Dad continued.
"I need you to listen carefully. What I told you about my work wasn't the whole truth. Hart Auto Repair was never just a garage."
Dante's face changed.
"I drove for Carlo Moretti before you were born."
I stared at Dante.
He stared at the recorder.
"We moved people, money, evidence. Eventually I learned enough to understand the Moretti organization had been compromised from inside."
Static cracked.
"Carlo wanted out of something. Victor Salvi wouldn't allow it."
Dante stepped closer.
The recording continued.
"I kept a ledger because Carlo asked me to. Insurance. If anything happened to him, I was supposed to give it to his son."
Dante whispered, "Me."
Dad's voice trembled through the speaker.
"But Carlo died before I could. And then they came for me."
My eyes filled.
"The accident..."
Tommy whispered.
Dad continued.
"If I die suddenly, it wasn't an accident."
Silence swallowed the room.
Dante lowered his gun.
For the first time since I had known him, the most controlled man in Boston looked shaken.
The cassette hissed.
Then Dad said something worse.
"Lena, there's one person you must never trust."
Static swallowed the next two seconds.
I leaned toward the recorder.
The tape cleared.
Dad spoke one final name.
Dante's head snapped toward me.
May you like
Tommy stopped breathing.
And somebody upstairs unlocked the garage door.
