Chapter 9 - Blood at Pier Seventeen
“Move away from him,” Rachel said.
Alessandra did not move.
Leo clung to her coat.
“You were my friend.”
Rachel’s face trembled.
“I tried to keep it that way.”
“You sent men to my apartment.”
“I didn’t know Leo would be there.”
“He lives there.”
“I thought preschool—”
“Stop.”
Alessandra’s voice broke.
“Do not explain my son to me.”
Rachel tightened her grip on the gun.
“Give me the backup drive.”
“No.”
“Alessandra.”
“No.”
Leo whispered, “Mommy.”
“I’m here.”
Rachel looked toward the warehouse.
Sirens.
Gunfire.
Shouting.
“Salvatore promised my daughters would be safe.”
“And you believed him?”
“I had no choice.”
Alessandra understood then.
Rachel was not loyal.
She was terrified.
“Where are your daughters?”
Rachel’s eyes filled.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s why you keep obeying him.”
Silence.
Alessandra slowly reached for her phone.
Rachel raised the gun.
“Don’t.”
“I can help you.”
“You can’t.”
“Vanessa can.”
“Vanessa uses people.”
“So does Salvatore.”
Rachel’s hand shook.
Leo looked at her.
“Are you crying?”
Rachel broke.
The gun lowered slightly.
Alessandra moved.
She grabbed Leo and shoved the door.
Rachel fell backward.
Vanessa’s agent tackled her.
Alessandra ran toward the warehouse.
“Stay back!” an agent shouted.
“Massimo is inside.”
“So is an active shooter!”
She ignored him.
Inside, Matteo lay bleeding.
Massimo pressed both hands against the wound.
“Stay with me.”
Matteo coughed.
“You got old.”
Massimo laughed once, brokenly.
“So did you.”
Alessandra reached them.
“Ambulance!”
“They’re coming.”
Matteo saw her.
“Ali.”
She knelt.
Four years of anger disappeared beneath the sight of his blood.
“You idiot.”
“I know.”
“You left me.”
“I know.”
“You have a son.”
His face crumpled.
“I know.”
She slapped his shoulder gently.
“You don’t get to die before meeting him properly.”
Matteo smiled weakly.
“That sounds like you.”
Paramedics arrived.
They carried him away.
Salvatore had escaped through a tunnel.
The ledger was recovered.
But Rachel revealed something worse.
Salvatore had prepared contingencies.
If arrested or killed, evidence would be released framing Massimo for the entire network.
Every payment.
Every murder.
Every bribe.
All transferred into Massimo’s name.
“He wants you to inherit the crimes,” Alessandra said.
Massimo stared at the files.
“Then we prove they aren’t mine.”
“That could take years.”
“Then it takes years.”
Vanessa approached.
“There may be another way.”
Marcello Costa had recorded everything before his death.
A master archive.
Original documents.
Audio recordings.
Photographs.
Enough to prove Salvatore created the network.
“Where?” Massimo asked.
Vanessa looked at Matteo being loaded into the ambulance.
“Only Matteo knows.”
At the hospital, surgeons operated for six hours.
Leo slept against Massimo’s chest in the waiting room.
Alessandra watched them.
Massimo had one arm around the child.
His other hand still wore the fading dinosaur Band-Aid.
She sat beside him.
“You can put him down.”
“No.”
“Your arm will go numb.”
“It already has.”
She smiled.
“Welcome to parenthood.”
Massimo looked at her.
Neither spoke.
Something had changed.
He leaned closer.
Slowly.
Giving her time.
Alessandra closed the distance.
Their kiss was quiet.
Brief.
No promises.
But when they separated, Massimo rested his forehead against hers.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither do I.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Then you can’t criticize my technique.”
She laughed softly.
The surgeon appeared.
Matteo had survived.
Two days later, he woke.
Leo met his father.
Matteo cried.
Leo offered him a dinosaur Band-Aid.
Massimo turned away to hide his expression.
Alessandra saw anyway.
Then Matteo asked to speak privately.
“There’s something about Leo’s birth certificate.”
Alessandra stiffened.
“You know?”
Matteo nodded.
“The paternal name.”
“Was it yours?”
“No.”
Her blood ran cold.
“Then whose?”
Matteo looked toward Massimo.
Before he could answer, every light in the hospital room went out.
A phone began ringing inside the medical cabinet.
Massimo opened the drawer.
May you like
The caller ID displayed one name.
MARCELLO COSTA.
