Chapter 6 - Pier Nineteen
Matteo reached for the locked door.
Frank stopped him.
“Pressure wire.”
A thin cable ran beside the frame.
The warehouse was trapped.
Salvatore’s recording continued.
“Sofia believed truth could save people. Anna believed knowledge could protect them. They were both young enough to confuse courage with immunity.”
Tessa stared at the recorder.
“Your sister survived the crash.”
Matteo’s face changed.
“What?”
The tape continued.
“I helped Sofia disappear. Anna went with her. For years I allowed you to believe your sister was dead because the alternative would have put you beside her.”
Matteo looked sick.
Tessa understood.
Twenty-three years of grief had just become twenty-three years of deception.
A timer illuminated across the warehouse.
05:00.
Frank swore.
Gas began hissing from a pipe.
They searched for an exit.
Tessa noticed Italian numbers painted on stacked crates.
Not inventory numbers.
Canto numbers.
Dante.
“Matteo.”
“What?”
“My mother left a pattern.”
She followed the numbers.
III. IX. XXXIV.
They corresponded to passages about betrayal.
The final crate concealed a maintenance hatch.
Frank forced it open.
They escaped with thirty seconds remaining.
Outside, Matteo turned toward the warehouse.
The explosion threw orange light across the river.
The tape recorder was gone.
So was the rest of Salvatore’s message.
But Tessa had heard enough.
“Sofia could still be alive.”
Matteo stared at the flames.
“Yes.”
“Then we find her.”
He looked at Tessa.
“Why?”
“Because my mother spent half her life protecting whatever Sofia knew.”
“That doesn’t make this your war.”
Tessa held his gaze.
“Someone shot at me yesterday. I think it became my war.”
Frank’s phone rang.
He answered.
Then looked at Matteo.
“We have Mercer.”
They found David in an abandoned office nearby.
His face was bruised.
He had been tied to a chair.
Tessa stared at him.
“You threatened Jenna.”
“I was trying to get you away from Moretti.”
“With a gun?”
“I didn’t point it at her.”
“That’s your defense?”
David looked toward Matteo.
“You don’t know what you inherited.”
“Explain it.”
David laughed weakly.
“Your father built a second organization inside the first. People who answer to nobody.”
“Names.”
“I only know one.”
“Who?”
David looked at Tessa.
“Her father.”
Tessa stepped closer.
“Tell me.”
David opened his mouth.
A red dot appeared on his chest.
Matteo saw it first.
“Down!”
The window shattered.
David collapsed.
Tessa screamed.
Frank fired toward a distant rooftop.
Matteo dragged Tessa behind a concrete wall.
David was still breathing.
Barely.
Tessa crawled toward him.
“Who was he?”
David’s lips moved.
She leaned closer.
“Say it.”
“Gabriel.”
“Gabriel who?”
David coughed.
“Vieri.”
Tessa froze.
Matteo did too.
Vieri.
Luca’s surname.
David grabbed Tessa’s sleeve.
“Not Luca.”
“Then who?”
“His father.”
David’s hand went limp.
Behind them, Frank’s phone rang again.
He looked at the screen.
“Boss.”
Matteo turned.
May you like
Frank held up the phone.
The incoming caller was Luca Vieri.
