Chapter 4 - The Man Beside Him
Pier 19 was abandoned.
Rain hammered the Hudson.
Dominic came alone.
At least, that was what the people watching believed.
Clara was 200 yards away inside an empty warehouse, listening through an earpiece.
Dominic had objected.
Clara had ignored him.
At exactly 5:12 a.m., headlights appeared.
A black sedan stopped.
A woman stepped out.
Dominic froze.
Even through binoculars, Clara saw his reaction.
“Dominic?”
He did not answer.
The woman was elegant, perhaps 60, with dark hair streaked silver.
She approached him.
“My son.”
Elena Rossi.
Dominic’s supposedly institutionalized mother.
“You have 10 seconds to explain.”
“You still count when you’re angry.”
“9.”
“Ben Jennings is alive.”
“8.”
“I know where he is.”
“7.”
“Gabriel betrayed you.”
Clara stopped breathing.
Dominic did too.
Elena continued.
“He has been working for Janus for 11 years.”
“No.”
“You trust him because he took a bullet for you.”
“He took 3.”
“Because Janus needed him beside you.”
Clara remembered Gabriel staying behind.
The second phone.
She had not seen it, but suddenly every instinct screamed.
“Dominic,” she whispered into the microphone. “We need to verify.”
Elena heard the faint sound.
“You brought her.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“Of course I did.”
For some reason, Clara almost smiled.
Elena handed Dominic a folder.
Inside were photographs.
Gabriel meeting Gallagher.
Gabriel entering Meridian Holdings.
Gabriel standing beside a federal prosecutor.
Dates stretched across years.
Dominic’s face remained controlled.
But Clara understood what Gabriel meant to him.
Not employee.
Brother.
Elena said, “The poisoned drink was designed to create chaos. Gallagher believed he was helping expose a traitor in your organization. He never knew he was expendable.”
“Who is Janus?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I spent 14 years pretending to be insane because it was the only place Janus stopped watching me.”
Dominic stared.
“You abandoned me.”
Pain crossed Elena’s face.
“I kept you alive.”
A shot rang out.
Elena fell.
“Mom!”
Dominic caught her.
Clara saw movement on a rooftop.
“Shooter! East building!”
Dominic dragged Elena behind concrete.
Gunfire erupted.
Clara ran from the warehouse despite every instruction.
By the time she reached Dominic, his men had secured the pier.
Elena was bleeding from her shoulder.
Alive.
She grabbed Clara’s wrist.
“Benjamin is at St. Agnes.”
“Hospital?”
“Abandoned children’s hospital in Yonkers.”
Dominic called his men.
Clara looked at Elena.
“Why does Janus want me?”
“Because your father did something brilliant.”
“What?”
“He made the ledger useless without you.”
Clara stared.
“How?”
“Your childhood memories are the encryption key.”
That sounded impossible.
Then Clara remembered the lullaby.
Dates.
Music.
Places.
Her father’s games.
Every birthday, Thomas Jennings gave Clara puzzles.
License plates.
Songs.
Street numbers.
He told her she had a special brain.
He had not been playing.
He had been programming a cipher into his daughter’s memory.
They reached St. Agnes before sunrise.
The abandoned hospital was a decoy.
Ben was not there.
But his IV pole was.
Attached was another note.
TRUST COSTS BLOOD.
Dominic’s phone rang.
Gabriel.
Dominic answered without speaking.
“Boss?”
“Where are you?”
“Tracking the hospital van.”
Dominic looked at Clara.
She shook her head.
Elena had told them Gabriel was compromised.
Dominic tested him.
“Meet us at St. Agnes.”
Silence.
Then Gabriel said, “Already outside.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
Headlights appeared.
Gabriel entered alone.
Dominic pointed a gun at him.
Gabriel stopped.
“That’s new.”
“Take out your weapon.”
Gabriel slowly complied.
“Phone.”
He placed it down.
Dominic threw the photographs at him.
Gabriel looked at them.
No surprise.
That was the worst part.
Dominic’s voice was quiet.
“Tell me they’re fake.”
“They’re not.”
Clara’s stomach sank.
Dominic seemed to lose something behind his eyes.
“How long?”
“Eleven years.”
Dominic struck him.
Gabriel hit the wall.
He did not fight back.
“You sat at my table.”
“Yes.”
“You buried my father with me.”
“Yes.”
“You called my mother a coward.”
“Yes.”
Dominic raised the gun.
Clara stepped forward.
“Wait.”
Dominic looked at her.
“He came here knowing you might know.”
Gabriel wiped blood from his mouth.
“She’s right.”
“Why?”
“Because Janus has Ben.”
Clara grabbed him.
“Where?”
“I can get you there.”
“Who is Janus?”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“That’s the problem.”
“What?”
“There isn’t one Janus.”
Silence.
“It’s a council. Seven people. Finance, law enforcement, organized crime, medicine, politics, shipping, intelligence.”
Dominic lowered the gun slightly.
“And you?”
“I infiltrated them.”
Dominic stared.
“You just admitted working for them.”
“I worked for your father first.”
Everything stopped.
Gabriel reached slowly into his shirt.
He removed a chain.
On it hung a ring.
Vittorio Rossi’s ring.
“Your father gave me this the night he died.”
Dominic recognized it.
“He told me to get inside Janus and stay there until I could identify all seven.”
“You could have told me.”
“No. Because one of the seven is a Rossi.”
Dominic looked toward Elena.
Gabriel did too.
Elena’s face changed.
Gabriel continued.
“I didn’t know which Rossi.”
Clara understood.
“You suspected Dominic.”
“For years.”
Dominic almost laughed.
“You spent 11 years deciding whether I murdered my own father?”
“I spent 11 years making sure you didn’t become the man who did.”
The tension between them could have cut steel.
Then Gabriel’s phone rang.
He looked at Clara.
“It’s them.”
She answered.
A video appeared.
Ben sat tied to a chair.
Awake now.
Terrified.
Behind him stood a masked figure.
“Clara,” Ben said.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t give them anything.”
The masked figure struck him.
Clara screamed.
Dominic grabbed the phone.
“You touch him again, I burn everything you own.”
The masked man laughed.
“You still think this is about money.”
The camera moved.
A second prisoner was revealed.
A woman.
Older.
Silver threaded through dark hair.
Clara stopped breathing.
The woman lifted her face.
Even after 12 years, Clara knew those eyes.
“Mom?”
Anne Jennings began crying.
“Clara.”
Clara’s knees nearly gave out.
The masked figure stepped between mother and son.
“At noon, bring the key.”
The feed cut.
Clara stood frozen.
Her mother was alive.
Her brother was captive.
And beside her, 3 people who had spent years lying to each other were suddenly the only people she could trust.
Then Elena whispered:
“I know that room.”
May you like
Everyone looked at her.
“It’s beneath the Velvet Oak.”
