Chapter 2 - THE PRICE OF BEING FOUND
Martina had a knife against Aloyio’s throat before the whiskey glass finished tipping.
It happened so quickly the glass remained upright for one impossible second before falling onto its side.
Whiskey spread across the bar.
Aloyio did not move.
The knife was an ugly kitchen blade Martina kept beneath the register. Its edge pressed beneath his jaw.
“Say her name again.”
Aloyio’s eyes dropped toward the blade.
“Sophia.”
Martina pressed harder.
A thin line of red appeared.
“You have five seconds.”
“If I wanted your sister dead,” Aloyio said quietly, “you would have received flowers instead of information.”
Martina hated that the statement made sense.
She pulled the knife away.
“Where is she?”
“Safe for tonight.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Newark.”
Martina’s stomach dropped.
Sophia was supposed to be in Vermont.
Aloyio slid a photograph across the counter.
Martina recognized the woman instantly despite the baseball cap and oversized coat.
Sophia.
Twenty-one years old.
Alive.
Walking outside a Newark train station.
The photograph had been taken that morning.
On the back, someone had drawn a small black cross.
Calibri.
Martina closed her eyes for half a second.
That was all she allowed herself.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“How did you get this?”
“One of my people intercepted it.”
“Why help me?”
Aloyio finally drank his whiskey.
“Because whoever is hunting you is also killing my people.”
That was the beginning.
By sunrise, Martina was inside a black SUV headed toward Manhattan with two armed men in front and Aloyio beside her.
She hated everything about it.
She hated the bulletproof glass.
She hated the expensive leather.
She hated the fact that Aloyio smelled faintly of cedar and smoke.
Most of all, she hated that she needed him.
Sophia was waiting inside a secure apartment overlooking the East River.
The moment Martina entered, her younger sister slapped her.
Hard.
Aloyio’s men looked away.
Martina didn’t.
“You lied to me,” Sophia whispered.
“I protected you.”
“You abandoned me in Vermont with a fake name and two thousand dollars.”
“Because people were trying to kill us.”
“They’re still trying!”
Sophia’s eyes filled.
“And I still didn’t have my sister.”
That hurt more than the slap.
Martina pulled her into an embrace.
Sophia resisted for three seconds.
Then she collapsed against her.
“I thought you were dead twice,” Sophia whispered.
“I’m here.”
“For how long?”
Martina had no answer.
Across the room, Aloyio quietly closed the door and left them alone.
It was the first thing he did that surprised her.
The second happened that evening.
He gave Martina access to his entire security operation.
Not pieces.
Everything.
His Manhattan properties. Vehicles. Rotations. Safe houses. Surveillance network.
Dante nearly exploded.
“You’re giving a stranger our routes?”
“She isn’t a stranger,” Aloyio replied.
“She held a knife to your throat six hours ago.”
“And she stopped.”
Dante stared at Martina.
“That supposed to make me feel better?”
“No,” Martina said. “But this might.”
She walked to the wall map.
“You have a leak.”
Nobody spoke.
Martina pointed toward three locations.
“Three attacks in eight weeks. Different neighborhoods, different crews, different times. But every target had changed route within forty-eight hours before being hit.”
Dante folded his arms.
“Coincidence.”
“There’s no such thing.”
Aloyio watched her.
“Continue.”
“Whoever attacked you knew the revised movements but not the original schedules.”
She circled four names on a printed access sheet.
“Only these people received all three updates.”
Dante’s face hardened.
His own name was among them.
So was Enzo’s.
Aloyio’s attorney, Victor Sanz.
And Aloyio’s uncle, Carlo Tuscono.
Martina expected outrage.
Instead, Aloyio asked, “Which one?”
“Too early.”
Dante scoffed.
“You just accused four senior people.”
“No. I identified four possibilities. There’s a difference.”
“You think you’re smarter than us?”
Martina looked at him.
“I think somebody is.”
Dante took one step forward.
Aloyio spoke without raising his voice.
“Enough.”
Dante stopped instantly.
Martina noticed.
Aloyio did not rule by theatrics.
He ruled because people knew exactly what happened after he gave an order twice.
That night, Martina devised a trap.
Four fake route changes.
Four different destinations.
Each suspect received one.
Then they waited.
At 11:36 p.m., Aloyio’s phone rang.
A warehouse near Red Hook had been surrounded.
The fake destination sent only to Victor Sanz.
Dante smiled grimly.
“Got him.”
Martina didn’t.
Something bothered her.
“Who delivered Victor’s route?”
Aloyio looked at her.
“My office.”
“Who printed it?”
Silence.
“Carlo’s assistant,” Dante said.
Martina’s pulse changed.
“Cancel everything.”
Aloyio stood.
“Why?”
“It’s too clean.”
Then every light in the penthouse went out.
Gunfire exploded downstairs.
Sophia screamed from the hallway.
Martina moved before anyone else.
She grabbed Sophia, pulled her behind a marble wall, then shouted, “They’re not coming from downstairs!”
Glass shattered behind Aloyio.
A sniper round tore through the window where his head had been one second earlier.
Martina slammed into him.
They hit the floor together.
A second bullet buried itself in the wall.
Security alarms erupted.
Dante drew his weapon.
Aloyio rolled, pulling Martina beneath the stone dining table.
“You knew?”
“I guessed.”
“That was a hell of a guess.”
“Thank me later.”
Men breached the service corridor.
The penthouse became chaos.
Martina’s old training returned without permission.
One attacker rushed the kitchen.
She caught his wrist, drove his arm against the counter, and stripped the weapon before he understood what had happened.
She froze afterward.
The pistol felt too familiar.
For one terrible instant she was twelve again.
Again.
Faster.
Aloyio saw her expression.
“Martina.”
She looked at him.
“Stay with me.”
Three words.
Not an order.
An anchor.
She breathed.
Then the elevator chimed.
Dante aimed.
The doors opened.
No attackers.
Only a cellphone lying on the elevator floor.
It began ringing.
Aloyio answered on speaker.
A distorted voice filled the penthouse.
“Vincenzo’s daughter.”
Martina went cold.
“Who is this?”
The caller laughed.
“You really believe the Calibris burned your house?”
Martina stopped breathing.
“They confessed.”
“No. They took credit.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference,” the voice said, “is who paid them.”
Aloyio’s expression changed.
Martina gripped the phone.
“Who?”
The caller remained silent for several seconds.
Then came five words that broke the foundation of her entire past.
“Ask Aloyio about your father.”
The line disconnected.
Martina slowly turned.
Aloyio was no longer looking at her.
May you like
And that told her everything she needed to know.
He knew something.
