Chapter 3 - Locker B-17
Grand Central Terminal was already overflowing when Dante arrived.
He came without the armored convoy.
One car.
Marco.
No visible weapons.
Locker B-17 was hidden in an older luggage-storage facility maintained for private rail clients.
The iron key fit.
Dante opened it.
Inside sat a cheap canvas bag.
No clothing.
No money.
Only documents.
Marco removed the first folder.
His expression changed.
“Jesus.”
There were photographs of license plates outside the Romano estate.
Bank transfers.
Copies of security schedules.
Names of Dante's captains.
Dates.
Routes.
One photograph showed Isabella speaking to Victor Salerno, a lieutenant belonging to the Romano family's most aggressive rival.
Another showed them kissing.
Dante's face remained unreadable.
But Marco knew him well enough to step backward.
“Where did Sophia get these?”
At the bottom of the bag was a small digital recorder.
Dante pressed play.
Sophia's voice filled the station noise.
“If you're hearing this, Mr. Romano, then either I left or something happened to me.”
Dante's jaw tightened at the formal name.
“I found the first photograph six weeks ago. It had been pushed beneath the library cabinet. I thought one of your men dropped it. Then I found another.”
She inhaled.
“I didn't tell you because I didn't know who I could trust.”
Marco looked at Dante.
Sophia continued.
“Someone inside your house has been giving Isabella information.”
Dante's eyes narrowed.
“I started keeping copies because the originals kept disappearing. Last week, I heard a man in the greenhouse say they needed you angry enough to start a war before October.”
Marco whispered, “The port vote.”
Dante understood instantly.
Three New York organizations were negotiating access to a legitimate shipping consortium. A war would destroy Romano's position and allow the Contis to seize the contracts.
Sophia's recording continued.
“Last night, when Isabella arrived, I knew she wasn't there because she was afraid.”
A long silence.
“She wanted my room because my balcony overlooks the greenhouse.”
Dante felt physically ill.
Sophia hadn't left because she was jealous.
Not entirely.
She had known she was in danger.
And Dante had personally moved the danger into her bedroom.
Her voice softened.
“I also left because I can't keep pretending what happened between us meant nothing to me.”
Dante stopped breathing.
“I know who you are. I know what your world is. I never asked you to become someone else.”
Another pause.
“But I won't live in a house where I'm important in private and disposable in public.”
Dante closed his eyes.
Marco turned away, granting him a privacy that hardly existed in the center of Manhattan.
Sophia's final words came quietly.
“Don't look for me because you think you own me. If you ever look for me, Dante, do it because you've finally decided what I am to you.”
The recording ended.
For several seconds, Dante couldn't move.
Then Marco's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression sharpened.
“What?”
Dante looked at him.
Marco lowered the phone.
“The Contis found the real destination.”
“Where?”
“Rhode Island.”
“How?”
“We don't know.”
Dante seized the documents.
“Then neither do they.”
Marco understood.
The Boston ticket had been a decoy.
Sophia had known she was being followed.
They spent the next four hours reconstructing her movements.
At 12:46, she left the Romano estate.
At 1:21, a cab carried her toward Beacon.
At 3:08, she purchased the Boston ticket in Albany.
But twenty-two minutes earlier, surveillance footage showed her paying cash to a woman outside a twenty-four-hour diner.
The woman owned a silver Honda.
License plates led them to Providence.
By sunset, they had an address.
A modest apartment above a closed bakery.
Dante stood across the street in the rain.
A second-floor lamp glowed.
Behind the curtain, a woman's silhouette crossed the room.
Sophia.
Every instinct told him to cross the street.
He didn't.
Marco sat beside him.
“You going in?”
“No.”
“You drove three hours.”
“To know she's alive.”
“That's it?”
“For tonight.”
Dante watched the window.
Then headlights appeared behind them.
A black sedan turned onto the street.
Marco checked the mirror.
His hand moved beneath his jacket.
“Dante.”
“I see it.”
Two men stepped out.
Neither belonged to Romano.
Dante recognized one immediately.
Conti.
The other opened his coat.
A handgun appeared.
Dante was out of the car before Marco could stop him.
Across the street, Sophia's curtain moved.
She saw him.
Her eyes widened.
Then the first gunshot shattered the bakery window.
Dante reached the apartment door as Sophia came running downstairs.
“What are you doing here?”
“Saving your life.”
“I didn't ask you to—”
A second shot struck brick beside his head.
Dante shoved Sophia behind the stairwell wall.
Marco returned fire.
“Back exit!” Dante ordered.
Sophia grabbed his coat.
“No.”
He stared at her.
“There’s a woman upstairs.”
“What?”
“Mrs. Alvarez. She's seventy-three and she can't walk without oxygen.”
Another bullet shattered glass.
Dante looked toward the stairs.
Sophia was already climbing.
“Sophia!”
May you like
She didn't stop.
And because apparently loving Sophia Bennett meant running toward danger whenever she did, the most feared man in New York swore violently and followed her upstairs.
