Chapter 6 - The Man Behind Both Families
Salvatore Rizzo had been dead for nine years.
Cassian attended the funeral.
He carried the coffin.
He watched dirt cover it.
Now the man stood ten feet away.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
Cassian raised his gun.
“You have five seconds.”
Salvatore smiled sadly.
“You always were impatient.”
“One.”
“Cassian.”
“Two.”
“I disappeared because staying alive would have killed you.”
“Three.”
Maria forced herself upright.
“Put the gun down.”
Cassian looked at her.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Four.”
Salvatore’s smile vanished.
“The missing ledger pages are in my possession.”
Cassian stopped counting.
Elena stepped forward.
“You have them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Gabriel Serrano isn’t the head of the network.”
Everyone went silent.
Salvatore entered fully.
“He never was.”
Elena looked toward Maria.
“Then who is?”
Maria closed her eyes.
Salvatore answered.
“Senator Charles Whitmore.”
Cassian frowned.
The name was nationally known.
A respected Massachusetts politician.
Chairman of a federal committee on organized crime.
Public crusader against trafficking.
Cassian laughed once in disbelief.
“You’re telling me the man holding hearings against organizations like ours runs the trafficking routes?”
“He protects them.”
Salvatore removed a flash drive.
“The Serranos handle operations. Whitmore handles government.”
Elena felt sick.
“How long?”
“More than twenty years.”
Cassian looked at his father.
“Why fake your death?”
“Because I tried to expose him.”
“You could have told me.”
“You were twenty-six.”
“I was running the family.”
“You were becoming the man I needed you to become.”
Cassian’s expression hardened.
“You don’t get to call abandonment strategy.”
Salvatore absorbed the words.
“No.”
That was all.
Maria looked at Elena.
“Gabriel took Sofia because Whitmore knows we found the records.”
Elena clenched her fists.
“Then we give them what they want.”
Cassian shook his head.
“We give them what they think they want.”
By 10:45 p.m., a plan existed.
Not a good plan.
But a plan.
Gabriel demanded Elena arrive alone at an abandoned shipping terminal near the harbor.
She would carry the original ledger.
Instead, Cassian created a duplicate.
The true ledger remained with Salvatore.
Luca positioned men outside the terminal.
Maria, injured but stubborn, coordinated the data release.
If Elena failed to send a code by 12:20, everything would be transmitted.
Cassian hated every second.
“You stay in the car until I say.”
Elena looked at him.
“I’m supposed to arrive alone.”
“You arrive alone. I arrive unseen.”
“That sounds very mafia.”
“It is.”
She smiled faintly.
Cassian did not.
“Elena.”
“What?”
“If anything changes, you leave.”
“Sophia—”
“Sofia.”
Elena paused.
Cassian continued.
“She would tell you the same.”
“You don’t know my sister.”
“I’ve known her twenty-five years.”
That was true.
Elena’s expression softened.
Cassian touched her face.
The gesture surprised both of them.
He almost pulled away.
Elena leaned into his palm.
For seven months, she had hidden beneath fabric, grease, lowered eyes and a false voice.
Cassian had spent years hiding differently.
Behind power.
Control.
Silence.
Neither had expected the other to become a place where hiding felt unnecessary.
“You scared me,” he said.
“When?”
“Every day since I found out.”
She smiled.
“That sounds romantic.”
“It wasn’t intended to.”
“Good.”
Cassian leaned closer.
Then stopped.
Elena understood what he was asking without words.
She closed the distance.
The kiss was brief.
Quiet.
Almost fragile.
When they separated, Cassian rested his forehead against hers.
“Come back.”
“I will.”
At midnight, Elena walked into the terminal.
Beige mechanic coveralls.
Dark cap.
Nico Vale returned for one final job.
Gabriel waited beneath a hanging industrial light.
Sophia sat tied to a chair behind him.
Her pink suit was dirty.
Her lip was split.
But she was conscious.
“Elena,” she whispered.
Gabriel smiled.
“You actually came dressed as him.”
“Nico kept me alive.”
“Nico was pathetic.”
“No.”
Elena looked at him.
“Nico was the strongest person I ever became.”
Gabriel’s smile faded.
“The ledger.”
She held up the book.
“Sophia first.”
“No.”
“Then no deal.”
Gabriel drew a gun.
Elena did not move.
“What happened to the woman who shook every time I raised my voice?”
“She disappeared three days before our wedding.”
Gabriel’s face twisted.
“I loved you.”
“No.”
“I gave you everything.”
“You gave me rules.”
“I protected you.”
“You controlled me.”
“You embarrassed me.”
There.
The truth.
Not love.
Humiliation.
Elena smiled sadly.
“You never wanted a wife. You wanted proof that nobody could leave you.”
Gabriel stepped toward her.
“You think Cassian loves you?”
Elena’s face gave him nothing.
“He wants to save you because men like him need damaged women to make themselves feel honorable.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know exactly what he is.”
A voice came from the darkness.
“No, you don’t.”
Cassian emerged.
Gabriel spun.
“You were told to stay away.”
Cassian shrugged.
“I’m bad with instructions.”
Gabriel aimed at Elena.
Cassian stopped.
“Ledger on the floor.”
Elena obeyed.
Gabriel kicked it toward himself.
He opened several pages.
His smile returned.
“Good.”
Sophia looked at Elena.
Something passed between them.
A tiny nod.
Sophia kicked backward.
The chair struck Gabriel’s knee.
He stumbled.
Elena lunged.
Cassian moved.
Gunfire cracked.
Gabriel ran.
Luca and his men entered through the side.
Cassian reached Sophia first.
“You hit?”
“No.”
Elena cut the ropes.
Sophia stood and immediately hugged her.
For the first time, the sisters held each other knowing what they were.
“Elena.”
“I know.”
“We’re really sisters.”
“I know.”
Sophia pulled back.
“And you kissed Cassian.”
Elena blinked.
“What?”
Sophia grinned despite everything.
“I saw you outside.”
Cassian looked offended.
“This is not the time.”
“It absolutely is.”
Then an engine roared outside.
Gabriel.
Cassian ran.
Elena followed.
They reached the loading dock in time to see a sedan speeding away.
Luca raised his phone.
“We tagged the car.”
Cassian looked at the tracker.
“He’s going north.”
Salvatore’s voice came through the earpiece.
“No.”
Cassian frowned.
“What?”
“He’s going to Whitmore.”
The sedan stopped forty minutes later.
Not at a mansion.
Not at a warehouse.
At a federal courthouse.
Elena stared at the tracker.
“Why there?”
Salvatore answered.
“Because Whitmore is holding a private meeting tonight.”
“With who?”
A pause.
“The attorney general.”
Cassian’s expression hardened.
Maria said over the line, “If Whitmore gives Gabriel federal protection, every witness disappears by morning.”
Elena looked at the ledger.
“The real pages?”
“With Salvatore.”
Cassian shook his head.
“We need them now.”
Then Luca’s phone buzzed.
He read the message.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
Cassian looked at him.
“What?”
Luca handed over the screen.
A photograph had arrived.
Salvatore.
Bound to a chair.
Behind him stood Senator Charles Whitmore.
Text appeared underneath.
BRING ELENA.
OR YOUR FATHER DIES AGAIN.
Cassian stared at the image.
Then another message arrived.
This time, a live location.
May you like
And underneath it, four words.
COME THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR.
