Someone hit the floor.
I screamed and dropped instinctively.
A hand closed around my shoulder.
For one horrible second, I thought Dominic had grabbed me again.
Then Vittorio's voice came beside my ear.
“Stay down.”
Emergency lights flashed red along the floor.
Men shouted.
A second gunshot sounded from the corridor.
Then Gabriel yelled, “Door!”
Everything happened in fragments.
Shoes pounding across marble.
Glass breaking.
A chair overturning.
Vittorio pulled me behind the heavy desk, positioning himself between me and the open doorway.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Check.”
“What?”
“Check yourself.”
My hands moved over my coat, stomach, sides.
Nothing.
“I’m okay.”
The emergency generator came online.
Dim amber lights returned.
Dominic Reyes lay near the office entrance.
Blood spread across his white shirt.
The older records manager, Salvatore, crouched against the wall, shaking.
Gabriel and another man disappeared into the corridor.
Vittorio stood.
“Stay here.”
I caught his sleeve.
“My brother.”
His gaze met mine.
“This is connected.”
“That’s why I’m not staying behind your desk.”
Something almost like disbelief crossed his face.
Then it vanished.
“Fine. Stay behind me.”
Dominic coughed.
Vittorio knelt beside him.
“Who ordered it?”
Dominic’s lips moved.
“Bell…”
Vittorio leaned closer.
“Bellini?”
Dominic’s eyes rolled toward me.
“The phone…”
“What about it?”
“Matteo… copied…”
His body convulsed.
“Copied what?”
Dominic struggled for breath.
Then his eyes closed.
Vittorio checked his pulse.
Nothing.
I turned away.
I hated Dominic.
For two nights I had imagined him getting what he deserved.
Watching him die taught me something ugly about revenge.
Imagining death and seeing it were entirely different things.
Vittorio stood.
“Lock down the building.”
Gabriel’s voice came through his phone.
“Shooter escaped through the service stairwell.”
“Cameras?”
“Offline for ninety seconds.”
“Of course they were.”
Vittorio looked at me.
“Your brother wasn’t running from me.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if Matteo had stolen from me, Dominic would have reported the phone.”
“Unless Dominic wanted it himself.”
“He didn’t.”
“You sound sure.”
“Dominic was many things. Independent wasn’t one of them.”
That was not comforting.
“What happens now?”
“We find Matteo before Bellini does.”
“You think he’s alive?”
Vittorio paused.
“I think whoever buried those reports still needs something from him.”
The phone.
My brother’s phone.
Then I remembered something.
Not a phone exactly.
A charger.
Three weeks earlier Matteo had come to my apartment complaining that his phone battery was dying. He had borrowed a charging cable.
He never took it home.
“Wait.”
Vittorio looked at me.
“What?”
“I may know where he hid something.”
Within ten minutes we were back in the sedan.
Vittorio came with me.
So did Gabriel.
Rain hammered the roof as we crossed Newark.
“Tell me about Lorenzo,” I said.
Vittorio stared through the window.
“He runs terminal operations.”
“And?”
“And he was at my father’s funeral.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“No.”
“So answer me.”
His eyes shifted toward me.
“He was my father’s closest associate. When I took control of the legitimate businesses, Lorenzo stayed. He knows our security systems, freight schedules, warehouses, personnel.”
“And your illegal businesses?”
Gabriel looked back from the front seat.
Vittorio answered calmly.
“You ask direct questions.”
“I’ve had a difficult week.”
Something almost human passed through his expression.
“He knows enough.”
“Enough to make containers disappear?”
“Yes.”
We reached my apartment shortly before midnight.
The front door was open.
I froze.
“No.”
Vittorio stepped in front of me.
“Stay here.”
He and Gabriel entered.
Seconds later Gabriel called, “Clear.”
I walked inside.
My apartment had been destroyed.
Couch cushions sliced open.
Cabinets emptied.
Mattress overturned.
Books scattered.
My mother’s ceramic bowl lay shattered across the kitchen tile.
I stood there staring.
“They searched everything.”
Vittorio’s voice came behind me.
“They were looking for the phone.”
“They broke my mother’s bowl.”
It was such a ridiculous thing to say.
My brother was missing.
Dominic was dead.
Someone had fired into Vittorio’s office.
And I was crying over a bowl.
But Matteo and I had eaten spaghetti from that bowl when we were children. Mom used it every Sunday until cancer took her.
I crouched and picked up one broken piece.
Vittorio said nothing.
After a moment I stood.
“They didn’t find it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they searched the wrong place.”
I walked to the laundry closet.
Inside was an old metal utility panel Matteo had repaired six months earlier.
I removed two screws.
Behind it sat a small plastic bag.
Inside was a black smartphone.
Vittorio stared.
“You knew?”
“No.”
A yellow sticky note was attached.
One line.
11/17. E, trust what you can prove.
My throat tightened.
Vittorio held out his hand.
I didn’t give him the phone.
“It belongs to Matteo.”
“It may contain evidence.”
“Against your people.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m supposed to hand it to you?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
He took his own phone out.
“Gabriel, get us a clean laptop. No network connection.”
Twenty minutes later we sat at my kitchen table.
The password was 1117.
Mom’s birthday.
The phone opened.
There were almost no normal apps.
Only photographs.
Shipping manifests.
Invoices.
Security screenshots.
And audio files.
Matteo had documented everything.
Container numbers had been altered after arrival. Customs declarations had been replaced. Payments moved through shell companies.
But the most important file was a video.
Matteo appeared on screen.
My brother looked exhausted.
“Elena, if you’re watching this, I’m sorry.”
My hand flew to my mouth.
“I should have told you. I thought keeping you ignorant would keep you safe.”
Tears blurred the screen.
“I found a theft operation inside Marquetti Logistics. Someone is using Vittorio’s routes and security credentials to move illegal cargo without his approval.”
Vittorio became perfectly still.
Matteo continued.
“Lorenzo Bellini is involved. I don’t know how high it goes.”
Gabriel cursed softly.
“The missing containers aren’t just stolen merchandise. I found evidence people were being transported too.”
My stomach turned.
Vittorio’s face went cold.
“Human trafficking?” I whispered.
Matteo continued.
“I tried reporting discrepancies internally. Every report disappeared. Dominic Reyes came to me afterward. That’s when I knew the system was compromised.”
Then Matteo held up a piece of paper.
“If anything happens, the full evidence is duplicated. The phone contains the location.”
The video ended.
I immediately searched.
Nothing.
“Where?”
Vittorio took the phone but did not touch anything until I nodded.
He searched the files.
One photograph showed Matteo beside our father’s old fishing boat.
Another showed the boat’s registration number.
Gabriel leaned closer.
“Could be coordinates?”
“No,” I said.
Then I saw it.
Painted on the stern was the boat’s old name.
Lucia.
Our mother.
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“The marina.”
“What marina?” Vittorio asked.
“My father kept that boat at Bayonne for years. Matteo sold it after Dad died, but he kept the storage locker.”
Vittorio was already moving.
Then the phone rang.
Matteo’s phone.
All three of us stared at it.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then breathing.
“Elena?”
My knees nearly gave out.
“Matteo?”
Vittorio looked sharply at me.
“Elena, listen to me.”
“Oh my God. Where are you?”
“I don’t have long.”
“You’re alive?”
“Don’t go to the marina.”
I looked at Vittorio.
“How did you know?”
“They’re waiting.”
“Who?”
A sound came through the phone.
A door.
Voices.
Matteo whispered, “Bellini knows you found the phone.”
My blood turned cold.
“How?”
“He has someone close to Vittorio.”
Vittorio heard.
His face changed.
“Who?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Where are you?”
“Elena—”
“Matteo, tell me!”
A man shouted in the background.
Matteo spoke quickly.
“Port Newark. Warehouse fourteen. Don’t trust—”
The call ended.
“Matteo!”
Nothing.
I stared at the screen.
Then at Vittorio.
“Warehouse fourteen.”
He was already calling Gabriel.
“No.”
I grabbed his arm.
“What?”
“He said someone close to you is helping Bellini.”
Vittorio slowly lowered the phone.
Gabriel looked between us.
For one terrible moment, nobody trusted anybody.
Then Vittorio did something I did not expect.
He removed his handgun.
Set it on my kitchen table.
And slid it away from himself.
“You decide,” he said.
“Decide what?”
“Whether you trust me enough to go get your brother.”
I stared at him.
“You’re asking me?”
“I’ve spent three days being given false information. You’ve spent three days being threatened for asking the truth.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“At the moment, Miss Moretti, you may be the only person in Newark whose motives I understand.”
I looked at Matteo’s phone.
Then at the bruises on my wrist.
Then at the man everyone had told me to fear.
“Fine.”
I pushed his gun back toward him.
“But I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You don’t know Matteo.”
“I know Warehouse Fourteen.”
“And I know my brother.”
Vittorio’s jaw tightened.
“You are remarkably difficult.”
“My mother used to say that.”
For the first time, Vittorio almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Gabriel’s phone vibrated.
He read the message.
His expression changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Warehouse Fourteen is burning.”
And outside my apartment window, far across the wet industrial skyline, orange light began climbing into the night.