Chapter 3: Pier 19
Alessandro refused to let me go to Pier 19 alone.
“It may be a trap,” he said.
“It probably is.”
“That is exactly why you are not going.”
“My husband’s name was written on that receipt.”
“And someone wanted you to see it.”
We argued in his private study while Emma slept on the leather sofa, wrapped in Alessandro’s tuxedo jacket.
Outside, the party guests were being questioned before security allowed them to leave. Vanessa had been moved to another room under guard.
Marco remained locked in the basement security office.
I stared at the rain sliding down the study windows.
“For three years, I believed Daniel died because a safety cable broke.”
Alessandro stood behind his desk.
“The waterfront project where he died belonged to Moretti Development.”
My breath caught.
“You knew?”
“I learned it tonight.”
He opened a computer file.
Daniel’s employment records showed that he had been hired as an independent safety inspector six months before his death.
His assignment was Harbor Tower Seven.
The same project that had been quietly abandoned after Daniel’s accident.
“Why would he hide that from me?”
“Perhaps he was protecting you.”
“From whom?”
Alessandro’s expression darkened.
“My family.”
At eleven thirty, we left Emma with Alessandro’s elderly housekeeper, Rosa, and drove toward the waterfront in an armored SUV.
Pier 19 was abandoned.
Rust covered the shipping containers. Rain struck the metal roofs with the sound of thrown gravel.
Alessandro carried a gun beneath his coat.
I carried Daniel’s old photograph in my pocket.
At midnight, a light appeared inside an empty warehouse.
We entered through a side door.
A single chair stood beneath a hanging bulb.
On it rested a black envelope.
Inside was a photograph of Daniel speaking to an older man behind St. Michael’s Church.
The man’s face was partly turned away, but Alessandro recognized him immediately.
“My father.”
“That is impossible,” I said. “Your father died years before Daniel.”
Alessandro flipped the photograph over.
A date had been printed on the back.
It was taken three days after Antonio Moretti’s official death.
A speaker crackled somewhere above us.
A disguised voice filled the warehouse.
“Your father survived the shooting, Alessandro. Daniel Bennett helped him disappear.”
Alessandro searched the shadows.
“Show yourself.”
The voice continued.
“Daniel learned who ordered the attack. That knowledge killed him.”
A gunshot exploded.
The hanging light shattered.
Alessandro pulled me behind a concrete pillar.
Another shot struck the wall inches from my head.
Then footsteps raced toward the rear exit.
Alessandro chased them while I remained crouched in darkness.
My hand touched something on the floor.
A cell phone.
Its screen lit up.
There was one saved video.
Daniel appeared on the screen, alive and terrified.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Sofia, if you are watching this, do not trust anyone wearing the Moretti lion.”
Behind him, a door opened.
A man entered the frame.
May you like
Before the video ended, I saw his face.
It was Alessandro.
