Chapter 12 - The Warehouse on Pier Seventeen
Dominic broke through first.
The room beyond contained the contingency server.
Rafael stood beside it with Emma.
“Phrase,” he demanded.
Emma cried.
Sophia held out her hands.
“Baby, look at me.”
Emma did.
“Remember Daddy.”
Her breathing slowed.
“Brave hearts…”
Rafael leaned closer.
Emma finished:
“…tell the truth.”
The server activated.
Rafael smiled.
Then the screen displayed:
SECOND AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED.
He stared.
“What?”
James had changed more than the password.
A message appeared.
AUTHORIZED WITNESS: SOPHIA BENNETT.
Rafael laughed.
“Of course.”
Sophia understood.
James had built the final lock around her.
Rafael pointed his gun.
“Authenticate.”
“No.”
“I will shoot Dominic.”
“No.”
“I’ll shoot you.”
“Then you never get the money.”
Rafael’s expression twisted.
Dominic saw his opening.
He lunged.
The gun fired.
Emma screamed.
Rafael and Dominic crashed against the server.
Marco pulled Emma away.
Sophia grabbed her.
Dominic struck Rafael.
Years of grief came out in silence.
No speeches.
No theatrical rage.
Just two brothers fighting over everything that had been stolen between them.
Rafael reached for the gun.
Marco kicked it away.
Then police sirens sounded.
Vivian had called them.
Rafael laughed from the floor.
“You brought police into your own warehouse, Dom?”
Dominic looked down at him.
“It isn’t my warehouse anymore.”
Rafael’s smile disappeared.
Dominic had made a decision.
The contingency fund would be used exactly as his father intended.
To end the criminal organization.
Rafael tried to run.
Marco blocked him.
For once, the traitor chose the right side.
Police entered.
Rafael was arrested.
So was Marco.
He did not resist.
Before being taken away, he looked at Sophia.
“I’m sorry.”
Sophia could not forgive him.
Not then.
Perhaps never.
But she said, “Tell them everything.”
“I will.”
Anthony survived his wound.
He was arrested at the hospital.
Adrian survived too.
He agreed to cooperate.
Vivian gave investigators every Romano record she possessed.
By sunrise, the empire Rafael had built in secret began collapsing.
Sophia thought it was over.
Then a federal investigator approached.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
“Yes?”
“We recovered something from Rafael’s private safe.”
He handed her an envelope.
James had written her name on it.
Inside was a letter.
And a photograph Sophia had never seen.
James stood beside Dominic’s father.
They were shaking hands.
On the back James had written:
He knows what Dominic must become.
Sophia looked at Dominic.
“What does that mean?”
Dominic turned the photograph over again.
A second line appeared beneath the first.
If I die, ask Elena what she promised my father.
May you like
They both looked toward Mrs. Costa.
But Elena Costa had vanished.
