Chapter 6 – THE ABANDONED DOCKS

The industrial docks were a graveyard of rusted shipping containers and broken cranes. The rain had turned the dirt roads into thick, unyielding mud.

Marco drove the armored SUV without headlights, navigating entirely by the GPS coordinates my father had hidden under the red balloon.

“Warehouse 44 is dead ahead,” Marco said, stopping the vehicle behind a stack of rotting wooden crates.

I peered through the rain-streaked window.

Warehouse 44 wasn’t just abandoned. It was half-collapsed. The roof had caved in years ago, and the corrugated metal walls were rusted through. It looked like the last place on earth someone would hide millions of dollars.

“Stay in the car, Emma,” Marco ordered, stepping out into the freezing rain with two of his men.

“I’m coming,” I insisted, pushing the heavy door open.

“You’re poisoned and exhausted,” Marco growled, trying to block my path.

“And my father left this clue for me,” I shot back, tightening the thick coat around myself. I adjusted my pale-blue scarf, ensuring it covered my hair loss. I wasn’t going to let cancer or Vanessa Bellini strip away my agency tonight. “If we’re going to save Luca, I’m seeing this through.”

Marco stared at me for a second, then gave a sharp nod of respect. “Stay right behind me.”

We approached the rusted sliding doors of the warehouse. Marco and his men pried them open with a harsh, metallic screech that echoed over the crashing waves of the nearby harbor.

Inside, it was pitch black and smelled of mildew and decaying fish.

Marco clicked on a heavy-duty flashlight, sweeping the beam across the vast, empty space. There were old wooden pallets, shattered glass, and debris everywhere.

“There’s nothing here,” one of the soldiers muttered. “It’s empty.”

“Coordinates don’t lie,” Marco said. “Search the floor. Look for a trapdoor, a false panel, anything.”

For twenty minutes, we scoured the filthy concrete floor. My legs ached terribly, and the nausea from the Thallium poisoning was making the room spin. But I kept searching, using my cell phone flashlight to check the corners.

I reached the far back wall of the warehouse. There was an old, rusted electrical box bolted to the concrete, covered in years of grime.

Something about it looked wrong.

The box itself was ancient, rusted brown and orange. But the four heavy bolts holding it to the wall were shiny. Stainless steel.

“Marco,” I called out. “Over here.”

Marco rushed over. He saw the bolts immediately.

He didn’t bother trying to unbolt it. He grabbed a heavy iron pry bar from his tactical rig, jammed it behind the electrical box, and threw his entire body weight into it.

With a loud crack, the box tore away from the wall.

Behind it wasn’t wiring. It was a modern, digital keypad set directly into the concrete.

“A hidden safe,” Marco smiled. “Good eye, kid.”

He frowned at the keypad. “But we don’t have the code. If we try to blow it, a safe this advanced might incinerate the contents inside.”

I looked at the drawing in my hand.

I looked at the coordinates.

Then I looked at the little girl holding the red balloon.

“Let me try,” I said softly.

Marco stepped aside.

I walked up to the keypad. I didn’t type in coordinates or birthdates.

I remembered my father. I remembered the last day I saw him. I was four years old. He had kissed my forehead, handed me my favorite stuffed bear, and told me he would love me forever.

I typed the day he left us.

0 – 4 – 1 – 2 – 0 – 2.

The keypad beeped green.

The concrete wall hissed, releasing a pressurized seal, and a heavy panel slid open.

Inside the wall cavity were stacked metal briefcases. Ten of them.

Marco pulled one out and popped the latches.

The flashlight beam illuminated rows upon rows of tightly banded, immaculate hundred-dollar bills.

“Twenty million dollars,” Marco breathed, his eyes wide. “The exact amount Marcus stole from the Moretti family twenty-four years ago.”

“We found his nest egg,” I said.

Before we could celebrate, my cell phone rang.

It wasn’t Mrs. Carter. The caller ID was restricted.

I answered it, putting it on speaker.

“Emma Lawson,” a deep, gravelly voice echoed from the speaker. It wasn’t Vanessa.

It was Marcus Bellini.

“Where is Luca?” I demanded, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

Marcus chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. “Luca is currently chained to a chair in my basement, bleeding on my expensive carpets. He’s a stubborn boy. Refuses to give me the password to the encrypted ledger you stole from the bank.”

My heart stopped. Luca hadn’t told them I had the book. He had lied to protect me.

“If you kill him, the Commission will execute you,” I said.

“The Commission will believe what I tell them,” Marcus replied coldly. “But let’s talk about you, little Emma. My daughter tells me you were quite the nuisance tonight. And now my men at the bank tell me you escaped the vault with the ledger.”

“I have it,” I said fiercely. “And I have something else.”

I looked at Marco. He nodded, pulling out a bundle of cash from the briefcase and slapping it loudly against his hand near the phone.

Marcus went dead silent on the line.

“Recognize that sound, Marcus?” I asked. “I’m standing in Warehouse 44. I have your twenty million dollars. The money you framed my father to hide.”

I could hear Marcus’s breathing turn ragged with sudden, violent fury over the phone.

“If you burn that money, I will peel your mother’s skin off,” Marcus roared.

“My mother is untouchable in the Moretti bunker,” I shot back, channeling every ounce of anger I had for the man who had ordered my slow death via poisoned chemotherapy. “But you are going to lose everything tonight unless we make a trade.”

“What do you want?” Marcus growled.

“Bring Luca to the old steel mill on Route 9. Alone with your daughter. One hour. You get the ledger and the money. I get Luca.”

I didn’t wait for his answer. I hung up.

Marco stared at me, genuinely impressed. “You just ordered around a Mafia boss. You’re sure you’re a maid?”

I looked at my hands. They were still shaking.

“I’m terrified,” I admitted. “But he’s going to bring an army, Marco. He won’t come alone.”

“I know,” Marco said, loading the briefcases into the SUV. He pulled out his radio. “Which is why I’m calling in every Moretti soldier in the tri-state area. We’re going to war.”

I looked down at my pale-blue scarf.

“No,” I said quietly.

Marco paused. “What?”

“If we fight an army with an army, a lot of people will die. Luca will probably die in the crossfire.”

I looked at the briefcases of money. “We don’t need a war. We just need to give Marcus exactly what he wants.”

Marco frowned. “You want to surrender the money?”

“No,” I said, a dangerous plan forming in my mind. “I want to give him a choice.”