Chapter 5 - Lorenzo's Debt
The woman outside was not Elaine.
She was elderly, elegant, and terrified.
"My name is Clara Vale."
Lorenzo recognized her.
Penny didn't.
Clara had been Elaine's closest friend.
She explained that Penny's mother had disappeared deliberately after discovering that someone inside the Moretti organization was selling information to rival groups.
Elaine had stolen evidence.
Not money.
The ledger everyone wanted wasn't a traditional book.
It was a collection of accounts proving decades of bribery, extortion, and betrayals.
"Why involve me?" Penny asked.
"Because Elaine hid the final access code where only you could find it."
"I don't know any code."
"You do. You simply don't know what it means."
Clara pointed toward Penny's necklace.
The tiny gold pendant her mother had given her.
Penny touched it.
Inside the pendant was an inscription.
She'd seen it thousands of times.
Always, 317.
The box number.
But Clara explained 317 was also the beginning of a cipher.
"Your mother divided the code."
"Where's the rest?"
Clara looked at Lorenzo.
"With him."
Lorenzo's expression darkened.
"I have nothing."
"Your scar."
Everyone looked at the thin scar through his eyebrow.
Lorenzo frowned.
Clara almost smiled.
"Elaine stitched that wound herself after Pier Nine."
Penny stared.
"She hid something in the stitches?"
"A phrase. She made you memorize it while you were delirious."
Lorenzo went silent.
Then whispered:
"Three before seven. One after nine."
Penny combined it with 317.
Marco wrote the numbers down.
A location appeared when entered into an old Moretti shipping index.
Warehouse 39.
Pier Nine.
Lorenzo looked at Clara.
"Why now?"
"Because Derek found me."
Penny's chest tightened.
"He knows?"
"He knows enough."
"Who paid him?"
Clara hesitated.
Then looked toward Marco.
Marco's face changed.
"Don't."
Clara whispered, "Your brother."
Lorenzo froze.
"Gabriel?"
Clara nodded.
Gabriel Moretti had supposedly died fifteen years earlier.
But Elaine had discovered he survived.
He had built a hidden network using Moretti money while allowing Lorenzo to believe he was dead.
Derek was one of his assets.
Penny's relationship had been surveillance.
Every anniversary.
Every vacation.
Every apology.
Every frightening night.
All of it had begun because someone wanted access to Elaine.
Penny walked into the bathroom and vomited.
When she returned, Lorenzo was waiting outside.
He didn't touch her.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't."
"I brought your mother into this world."
"No. Your father did."
"I continued it."
Penny looked at him.
"Then help me end it."
They went to Pier Nine after dark.
Warehouse 39 had been abandoned for years.
Inside, they found a locked metal cabinet.
317 opened it.
There was no ledger.
Only a recorder.
Penny pressed play.
Her mother's voice filled the warehouse.
"Penny, if you're hearing this, then Gabriel found you."
Penny covered her mouth.
Elaine continued.
"Derek isn't the danger. He's the leash. Find who is holding it."
A noise came from the warehouse entrance.
Marco drew his weapon.
Lorenzo turned.
A silhouette appeared behind the frosted glass.
Then Penny heard a voice she had spent thirteen years believing she would never hear again.
"Baby?"
May you like
Her mother's voice.
The door began to open.
