Chapter 3 - The Cold Shadows of the Docks
"Answer me," Dante said, stepping forward.
Bianca backed away until her spine hit the mahogany bookcase. "Dante, listen to me! She was digging into the books. She knew about the zinc shipments! She was going to the federal harbor commission. She was going to destroy everything you built!"
"I asked you," Dante whispered, catching her throat with one leather-gloved hand, lifting her until her designer heels dangled inches off the Persian rug, "what did you do to my wife?"
"The Falcones... they offered an alliance," she choked out, clawing at his fingers. "Your brother was weak, Dante. And Elena was making you weak! You let her audit the accounts. You stopped the retaliations because she wanted peace! Sylvio knew it, I knew it! With her gone, you would have to marry into our bloodline to keep the docks!"
Dante dropped her like a sack of damp grain. He didn't waste a bullet on her. He turned to his head of security, Leo, who stood in the doorway with his weapon drawn.
"Lock her in the wine cellar. Strip her of every device. If she screams, take her teeth," Dante commanded, his voice dead and terrifyingly calm. "Call the crews. Every man who carries a Moretti paycheck is on the road right now. We move to Route 127."
Ten miles north, Elena was crawling through freezing beach plum brambles.
The Volvo had not gone over the cliff. Through sheer stubborn grit, Elena had cut the wheel into an old logging spur, sacrificing the front axle against an oak tree to avoid the drop. The black truck had skidded past, unable to take the turn, giving her forty precious seconds.
She scrambled out through the passenger door, slipping on wet pine needles. Blood trickled down her forehead from a cut near her hairline, mingling with the rain. Her ribs screamed in protest, but her hand stayed clamped over her belly.
"Hang on, little one," she whispered through chattering teeth. "Just stay still. Hold on to mama."
She knew this stretch of coastline. Two hundred yards south lay the rotting perimeter of the old Cape Ann Sardine cannery, abandoned since the 1980s. It had a tidal intake tunnel that connected directly to an inlet basin—an industrial labyrinth of rusted cat-walks, corrugated zinc, and shadow.
Behind her, heavy boots crunched over gravel. Flashlights pierced the fog.
"Spread out!" a gruff voice shouted, carried by the wind. "Falcone said don't leave her breathing! Make it look like she drowned after the crash!"
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Elena slipped beneath the chain-link fence, disappearing into the dark maw of the warehouse just as the beam of light swept across the mud where her footprints had been washed away by the storm.
***
