Chapter 10 - The Night Marcus Disappeared
Dante watched the video three times.
His father had been dead for eighteen months.
There was no ambiguity.
Same face.
Same scar beside the chin.
Same heavy shoulders.
But Claudia saw what grief initially hid.
“That isn’t Alessandro.”
Dante looked at her.
“How?”
“His left hand.”
The man in the video wore a ring on his left hand.
Alessandro had lost the tip of his left ring finger in an industrial accident at twenty-two.
This man had not.
A brother?
Stefano.
The resemblance between the Castellano brothers had strengthened with age.
Stefano had altered his appearance.
Hair.
Beard.
Weight.
He had spent years becoming close enough to Alessandro’s image to weaponize it.
“Why?” I asked.
Claudia answered.
“Because Dante hesitated.”
She was right.
One second of shock could kill a person.
Stefano understood that.
The location metadata embedded in Gabriel’s video pointed to Pier 17.
Old cold-storage warehouse.
We drove separately.
Victor coordinated federal agents but warned us they could not move until Marcus’s exact position was known.
Dante hated waiting.
So did I.
Titan solved it.
At Pier 17, he caught Marcus’s scent from a discarded sweatshirt.
We followed through storage corridors.
Titan stopped at two doors and rejected them.
At the third, he scratched.
Marcus was inside.
Alive.
Alone.
We freed him.
“Gabriel moved ten minutes ago,” he said.
“Where?”
“Below us.”
The warehouse had old refrigeration tunnels.
Marcus grabbed my arm.
“Rosie, they know about your hearing aid.”
My blood chilled.
“They searched me. Gabriel kept saying the second key was missing.”
I had removed the old casing before coming.
Dante had hidden it.
Stefano had Marcus but lacked the key.
That bought us time.
Then Marcus said something worse.
“They don’t want the money.”
“What?”
“They want the archive.”
Of course.
Forty-eight million was small compared with the power contained in Northstar’s records.
Names could destroy careers.
Families.
Cases.
Organizations.
Governments.
Stefano wanted control.
We moved underground.
Titan led.
The tunnel ended at an enormous refrigerated chamber.
Gabriel stood inside.
Stefano beside him.
Dante raised his gun.
Stefano smiled.
“Nephew.”
“Uncle.”
“You’ve become your father.”
“No.”
Dante’s voice stayed calm.
“I became what he was trying to become.”
Stefano’s smile faded.
Gabriel aimed at me.
Titan growled.
“Control the dog,” Gabriel said.
I placed two fingers against Titan’s shoulder.
Easy.
He stayed.
Gabriel seemed disappointed.
He wanted the monster everyone believed Titan to be.
But Titan had never been a monster.
That was their mistake.
Stefano demanded the key.
Dante offered a drive.
“Full archive.”
Stefano laughed.
“You think I trust you?”
“No.”
Dante dropped the drive onto the floor.
“I think you trust greed.”
Gabriel glanced down.
One second.
Titan moved.
Not toward Gabriel.
Toward the lights.
He struck a hanging emergency cable exactly as we had trained him.
Darkness.
Dante tackled Stefano.
I pulled Marcus behind a steel column.
Gunshots.
Victor’s team entered from the south tunnel.
Someone screamed.
Emergency lights came on.
Gabriel was gone.
Stefano lay pinned beneath Dante.
Victor handcuffed him.
Marcus was safe.
But Titan was missing.
Blood marked the floor.
I followed it.
“Titan!”
Nothing.
Then I saw Gabriel’s trail.
He had shot Titan.
My chest collapsed.
We followed the blood through the tunnel.
It reached the harbor loading platform.
No Titan.
No Gabriel.
Only drops leading toward the water.
I ran to the edge.
Dark waves.
“Titan!”
Silence.
Dante reached me.
He looked down.
A silver chain floated near the dock.
Titan’s collar.
I grabbed it.
Blood covered the links.
Then from somewhere beneath the pier came one weak sound.
A scratch.
I dropped to my knees.
There was a maintenance hatch beneath the platform.
Dante pulled it open.
Darkness below.
I called Titan again.
May you like
This time something moved.
But when Dante aimed his flashlight downward, the face looking up at us was Gabriel’s...
