Chapter 2 - The Man at the West Wall
The man’s hand disappeared inside his jacket.
Vincent Moretti saw it.
So did Elena.
Everything that happened next took less than three seconds.
Vincent caught Elena around the waist and pulled her down.
“Floor.”
A gunshot cracked through Harbor House.
Crystal exploded behind them.
Someone screamed.
Elena hit the carpet beside Vincent’s chair as a second shot tore through the linen-covered table. Wine glasses shattered, candles toppled, and the elegant waterfront restaurant transformed into chaos.
Vincent’s men moved with terrifying speed.
The two men Elena had assumed were ordinary guests near the windows overturned a table and drew weapons. Another grabbed Paul Henley and dragged him behind the bar.
But Vincent didn’t fire.
He was staring beneath table twelve.
At the black device.
A red light blinked once.
Then again.
Elena’s blood went cold.
“Vincent,” one of his men shouted.
“I see it.”
The shooter at the west wall shoved through the crowd toward the kitchen.
Vincent’s gaze snapped to Elena.
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long has that been there?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t there when I set the table.”
He studied her face for half a second.
Apparently, he believed her.
“Stay down.”
Then he rose.
Elena grabbed his sleeve.
“Don’t.”
His dark eyes dropped to her hand.
She immediately released him.
“The wire,” she whispered. “It runs toward the table base.”
Vincent crouched again.
A muscular man with a shaved head rushed over.
“Boss, we need to move.”
“Not yet, Marco.”
“Whatever that is—”
“Moving may be exactly what they want.”
Marco looked at Elena.
“Who is she?”
“The reason I’m still sitting here.”
Another gunshot sounded from the kitchen.
Vincent’s expression changed.
“Take her.”
Marco grabbed Elena’s arm.
“No!”
Vincent looked sharply at her.
“My brother.”
“What?”
“He’s working tonight.”
Her brother Caleb had taken occasional maintenance shifts at Harbor House since his medical bills began piling up. He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the dining room, but Elena knew he had been repairing a refrigeration unit downstairs.
“He’s in the basement.”
Vincent stared at her.
Then the fire alarm began screaming.
Red emergency lights flashed.
Guests surged toward the doors.
“Lock the exits!” Vincent shouted.
Elena couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“There could be a bomb under your table and you’re locking us inside?”
“If they wanted everyone dead, Elena, we’d already be dead.”
She froze.
She had never told him her name.
Vincent noticed.
“Your name tag.”
She glanced down.
Of course.
Under any other circumstances, she might have laughed.
Instead, Marco pulled her toward the service corridor.
Vincent followed.
Behind them, his men secured the dining room while someone approached the device beneath table twelve.
The kitchen was empty.
Almost.
A cook lay unconscious near the pantry.
Paul’s assistant manager was gone.
And the rear delivery door stood open.
Vincent stopped.
“Who has access?”
Elena swallowed.
“Staff. Management. Delivery crews.”
“Security cameras?”
“Paul’s office.”
Marco spoke into his radio. “West corridor. Now.”
No response.
His expression hardened.
Vincent walked toward the basement stairs.
Elena blocked him.
“You’re not going down there.”
One eyebrow lifted.
“Did you just give me an order?”
“My brother is downstairs, and whoever planted that thing may be too.”
Vincent stepped closer.
He smelled faintly of expensive cologne and gunpowder.
“You warned a man you believe is dangerous, then grabbed him while someone was shooting at him.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s what concerns me.”
Another sound came from below.
A metallic crash.
“Elena?”
Caleb.
She ran.
Vincent cursed and followed.
She reached the basement landing and found Caleb sprawled beside the refrigeration room.
“Caleb!”
Her twenty-three-year-old brother was conscious but dazed. Blood ran from his temple.
“Elena?”
She dropped beside him.
“What happened?”
“Some guy came down here.”
Vincent crouched across from them.
“What guy?”
Caleb’s eyes widened when he recognized him.
“Oh, hell.”
“Useful description,” Vincent said. “Try again.”
Caleb looked at Elena.
“The assistant manager. Travis.”
Elena stared.
“Travis attacked you?”
“He asked about the electrical panel. I told him he wasn’t supposed to touch it. Then somebody hit me from behind.”
Vincent stood.
“Marco.”
“I’m on it.”
But Caleb caught Elena’s wrist.
“Wait.”
He reached shakily into his work jacket.
“I took this off him.”
He produced a small brass key.
A number was stamped into it.
Vincent took it.
His face became unreadable.
Marco saw the number.
For the first time that night, the enormous man looked genuinely disturbed.
Elena noticed.
“What?”
Neither answered.
“What does 317 mean?”
Vincent closed his fist around the key.
“It means tonight wasn’t an assassination.”
“Then what was it?”
His gaze moved toward the ceiling.
“A message.”
Police sirens eventually filled the waterfront.
But the police who arrived didn’t behave like ordinary officers.
They spoke privately with Vincent.
Nobody handcuffed him.
Nobody searched him.
And within thirty minutes, the official explanation became an “electrical security incident.”
Elena understood something then.
Vincent Moretti didn’t merely operate outside Baltimore’s rules.
Some of Baltimore’s rules moved around him.
Caleb was taken to the hospital with a concussion.
Elena expected to go with him.
Vincent stopped her near the ambulance.
“I need five minutes.”
“You’ve had enough of my night.”
“Someone inside this restaurant planted a device beneath my table.”
“That sounds like your problem.”
“It became yours when you noticed it.”
Her anger faltered.
“What was it?”
“Not an explosive.”
Elena stared.
Vincent continued.
“A transmitter.”
“For what?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Then why the shooting?”
“To force me away from the table.”
Elena remembered his words.
Moving may be exactly what they want.
“You think they wanted you to carry something?”
“Or activate something.”
He showed her the brass key.
“Room 317 belonged to a storage facility my father used twenty years ago.”
Elena frowned.
“Your father?”
“He’s dead.”
“So is mine.”
Something shifted behind Vincent’s eyes.
Briefly.
Then disappeared.
“Go with your brother,” he said.
Elena turned toward the ambulance.
“Elena.”
She looked back.
Vincent held her gaze.
“Until I know who did this, don’t trust anyone who worked tonight.”
She almost told him how absurd that sounded.
Then she remembered Paul sweating before service.
Travis disappearing.
The open delivery door.
Caleb bleeding on the basement floor.
“Does that include you?”
Vincent’s mouth barely moved.
“Yes.”
That answer frightened her more than a lie would have.
At 3:18 the next morning, Elena sat beside Caleb’s hospital bed.
He was asleep.
Her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
Elena stared at it.
It showed her standing outside the hospital twenty minutes earlier.
Taken from across the street.
Then came a message.
You should have stayed invisible.
Her breathing stopped.
A second message arrived.
Ask Moretti what happened to your father.
Elena slowly looked toward Caleb.
Her father, Thomas Marlowe, had died sixteen months earlier in what police called a highway accident.
May you like
For the first time, Elena wondered whether they had been wrong.
And somewhere in Baltimore, Vincent Moretti was holding a key marked 317.
