Chapter 10 - Pier Nineteen)
Maria woke with salt on her lips and steel beneath her cheek.
Her wrists were tied behind a chair inside a warehouse. Rain struck the roof. Through broken windows she could see black water and the lights of Brooklyn across the river.
Pier Nineteen.
A man stood with his back to her, studying the original passports Eleanor had arranged five years earlier. One bore Maria's photograph under the name Elena Rossi. Another belonged to Matteo. The third had no picture, only the name Sofia Rossi and an unborn child's estimated birth date.
"Where did you find those?" Maria asked.
The man turned.
Leo Mancini smiled.
Daniel's captain had spent twenty years looking forgettable: medium height, quiet suits, patient eyes. Maria remembered him at the gala, avoiding Vincent. She remembered Daniel saying Leo's false Red Hook location had not leaked.
"Your floorboard," Leo said. "Matteo hid them before he went to the pier. You should have found a better first home."
"You sent the message to the drive."
"One of many. Fear is inexpensive and remarkably productive."
"Are you V?"
Leo laughed. "Everyone wants V to be a name. V is a chair. Whoever controls the Crown sits in it. Rocco served one V. Matteo discovered another. Daniel is hunting the wrong generation."
He placed a photograph in her lap. It showed Lorenzo Moretti shaking hands with a younger man whose face had been cut from the print. Between them stood Vincent.
"Daniel's father built the network," Leo said. "Vincent protected it. Matteo tried to steal it. Daniel inherited it while pretending his hands were clean."
"If that is true, why are you hiding?"
"Because Daniel is sentimental where his brother is concerned. Sentimental men become unpredictable."
Maria tested the rope against the chair's metal edge. "You want the ledger."
"The ledger is a map to accounts worth two billion dollars. Only a Moretti heir can open the final trust. Matteo was supposed to do it. Now his daughter will."
"She is four."
"Biometric locks do not care."
Rage made Maria's vision sharpen. "You will never touch her."
Leo leaned close. Cedar and tobacco clung to his jacket.
"Sofia was right," Maria whispered. "You were the sleepy man."
"Borrowed coat. Borrowed scent. Borrowed enemies. That is how one survives men like Daniel."
He left her with two guards.
Maria continued sawing the rope against the chair. Matteo had taught her how to break a thumb to escape a restraint. He had also made her promise never to do it unless Sofia's life depended on it.
She closed her eyes, pulled hard, and swallowed a scream as the joint shifted.
At the mansion, Daniel prepared two cases. One contained the real ledger. The other contained paper wrapped around a transmitter and an explosive dye charge. Vincent watched him select the real one.
"You intend to give it to them?"
"I intend to bring Maria home."
"And if they demand Sofia?"
Daniel looked at the nursery camera on his phone. Sofia slept beside Eleanor, her lion bracelet visible above the blanket.
"They will not have her."
Vincent buttoned his coat. "Then they will kill Maria."
"Only if I arrive as the man they expect."
Daniel removed his watch, jacket, and gun. He dressed in a dockworker's coat and took a delivery truck alone. Vincent's team followed at a distance without lights.
At Pier Nineteen, Daniel entered through a drainage channel his father had used during Prohibition raids. He found Maria's chair empty and one guard unconscious. The second lay groaning, clutching the place where she had driven the broken chair leg into his knee.
A trail of blood led toward the container yard.
Daniel followed it to a blue container suspended from a crane above the river. Maria stood inside with Leo's gun at her back. Her left hand hung at an unnatural angle.
Leo called down from the crane platform. "Ledger first."
Daniel held up the case. "Lower her."
"Bring the child."
"No."
"Then watch her drown."
The crane moved. The container swung over black water.
Daniel stepped into the open and placed the case on the ground. "You have the wrong leverage. Maria barely knows me."
Leo laughed through the loudspeaker. "But you know her daughter. Matteo's eyes. Matteo's smile. Your chance to forgive yourself."
The words found their mark.
"Take the ledger," Daniel said. "Let her walk."
One of Leo's men approached the case. Daniel waited until he knelt to open it, then pressed the transmitter on his belt.
Floodlights blazed from every roof. Vincent's shooters opened fire on the crane platform. Daniel ran toward the controls as Leo's man raised his weapon. Maria kicked backward, caught the man's wrist, and dragged him into the container.
The crane cable released.
The container fell.
Daniel reached the emergency lever and pulled with both hands. The auxiliary brake caught ten feet above the river, jerking the container so violently that its doors tore open. Maria slipped over the edge.
Daniel jumped from the platform, caught the hanging cable, and swung toward her. Their hands met above the water. Her injured thumb could not hold him.
"Let go," she cried. "You'll fall too."
"My family has let go enough."
Vincent reached the platform and seized Daniel's belt. Together they pulled Maria to safety.
Leo escaped in a speedboat during the gunfire, taking the false case. The real ledger remained hidden in Daniel's truck.
As sirens approached, Maria remembered Sofia's bracelet.
"Leo knows the trust needs her. He will go to the mansion."
Daniel checked the tracking application.
May you like
Sofia's signal was moving south at sixty miles an hour.
Then the lion bracelet went dark.
