Chapter 2 - THE RECORDING
Luca took Lauren and the rescued victims to a closed restaurant overlooking the Hoboken waterfront. A trusted physician treated the captives in the kitchen while Luca contacted Maya Chen, a federal trafficking investigator who had recently been removed from Newark operations.
Lauren remained near the exit. “If this is where you make witnesses disappear, the atmosphere is disappointingly ordinary.”
“If I wanted you dead,” Luca said, placing her recovered equipment on the table, “we would not be discussing the décor.”
The fact that he knew her name frightened her more than the threat.
Lauren pressed playback on her recorder. At first there was only gunfire and shouting. Then Gabriel’s voice came through the speaker.
“She survived. Luca opened the container. She was never supposed to leave this warehouse alive.”
Luca stopped moving.
Lauren replayed it. “That is your most loyal man.”
“For seventeen years.”
“He knew I would be there.”
The recording continued. A second voice crackled through Gabriel’s phone.
“Once Moretti opens the container, the treaty is finished.”
Luca recognized the speaker as Special Agent Nolan Price, the official commanding the federal port-corruption task force.
“The people Vanessa investigated own part of law enforcement,” Lauren said.
“They own Price,” Luca replied. “I don’t know how many others.”
He unlocked a cabinet filled with photographs of missing women, manifests, port maps, and surveillance records. At the center was a photograph of a dark-haired seventeen-year-old girl.
“My sister, Alessia. She disappeared fifteen years ago.”
Lauren looked at him. “You became a mafia boss to find her?”
“No. I became a mafia boss because I chose power. Finding Alessia was the excuse that made the choice easier to live with.”
The crane symbol appearing on Kenji’s manifest also appeared in Alessia’s missing-person file. Kenji had apparently discovered that Gabriel, Price, and the Ishida organization were moving people through protected shipping routes. Vanessa contacted Kenji and was taken before she could publish.
Lauren examined Vanessa’s text again. She and Vanessa had created a safety protocol after a source threatened them the previous year. They never sent precise locations in ordinary language. A legitimate tip would have arrived as coordinates followed by a shared verification word.
“Newark tonight. Confirmed” violated every rule.
Vanessa had been warning Lauren that someone else controlled her phone.
Lauren had walked into the trap anyway.
Her laptop began transferring the warehouse footage to an encrypted server. Luca noticed.
“What are you uploading?”
“Everything. If I fail to check in, it goes to my editor.”
“Publishing tonight could make them move Vanessa.”
“The deadline is dawn.”
Luca could have destroyed the computer. Instead, he pushed it back toward her.
“Keep the transfer alive.”
Lauren studied him. “You are really going after them.”
“Opening that container broke the treaty.”
“You keep calling it peace. The people inside those boxes would call it something else.”
Luca looked toward the rescued teenage girl sleeping beneath his coat.
“Yes,” he said. “They would.”
A message suddenly appeared through an encrypted account only Vanessa and Lauren used.
LAUREN, DON’T COME. GABRIEL KNOWS EVERYTHING.
The message vanished seconds later, but Lauren captured it.
“She’s alive,” Lauren whispered.
“For now.”
Luca tested Gabriel by giving two of his captains different false routes for moving the rescued victims. One route was attacked within forty minutes.
Only Gabriel had known it.
The betrayal hurt Luca more deeply than the recording. Gabriel had taught him to shoot, stood beside him at his father’s funeral, and carried him from the street after an assassination attempt. He had not simply infiltrated Luca’s empire.
He had helped build it.
Kenji’s manifest placed Vanessa inside container 6117 at Pier 12. The freighter carrying it would depart shortly after two in the morning.
Luca handed Lauren a protective vest.
“You stay here.”
“Vanessa entered that warehouse because we were working together.”
“And someone needs to survive long enough to publish what she found.”
Lauren fastened the vest.
Luca exhaled. “Do you ever follow instructions?”
“Not from mafia bosses.”
For the first time, the corner of his mouth moved.
May you like
It was not quite a smile.
Then they left for Pier 12.
