Chapter 8 - Pier Seventeen
At eleven fifty-two, Giovanni Vescari drove onto Pier Seventeen with no visible security.
That was the deal.
It was not the truth.
Marco had people in a fish-processing building across the water. Two more watched from a construction crane. Emilio was in the rear seat despite his father’s order to stay home.
Lucia was beside him.
Giovanni had stopped arguing with both of them at eleven twenty.
Clarissa sat in the front passenger seat with the blue ledger on her lap.
The real one was locked in Giovanni’s safe.
This copy was good enough to pass from ten feet away.
“You’re sure they’ll know you?” Giovanni asked.
“No.”
“Comforting.”
Clarissa looked toward the warehouses. “If Black Rose is here, they know all of us.”
Emilio leaned forward. “You said Helena asked you to help her. Prove it.”
Clarissa looked back at him. “Your mother found me in the garden last winter. She said, ‘If you hurt my son, I’ll ruin your life. If you’re already in love with him, help me save it.’”
Emilio’s face tightened.
“She knew you were Sanz’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“And she didn’t tell me.”
“She wanted to know whether I would choose you without being forced.”
Lucia said, “Did you?”
Clarissa looked at the fake ledger. “I’m still trying to answer that.”
A horn sounded twice from Warehouse 9.
Giovanni stopped the car.
They walked inside.
Helena’s coffin sat in the center of the concrete floor.
Father Matteo was tied to a chair beside it.
Three masked men stood around him.
A fourth man stepped from the shadows.
No mask.
Vincent Cole.
Emilio stared. “You were shot.”
Vincent smiled faintly. A bandage showed beneath his shirt near the shoulder.
“Through and through.”
Lucia went cold. “You staged it.”
“I arranged it.”
Giovanni’s eyes became stone. “Twenty-three years at my table.”
Vincent shrugged. “Twenty-three years watching everyone call you a genius while I cleaned every mess.”
“You stole from Helena.”
“I moved money that was already dirty.”
“It was her foundation.”
“And she made the mistake of becoming curious.”
Lucia took a step forward.
Giovanni blocked her.
Vincent smiled at her. “Your mother was much tougher than anyone knew.”
“Don’t say her name.”
“I liked Helena.”
Lucia’s eyes filled with fury. “You kidnapped her body.”
“I needed Giovanni to come.”
Emilio pointed to Father Matteo. “Let him go.”
Vincent’s gaze moved to him. “Still playing hero after a week at the beach?”
Emilio flinched.
Clarissa lifted the ledger. “You want this?”
Vincent’s smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
“Then answer something.”
“You are not negotiating.”
“Who killed Helena?”
Nobody moved.
Vincent looked at Giovanni.
Then at Emilio.
Then he said, “Nobody killed her.”
Lucia stared.
“What?”
“Your mother had a ruptured aneurysm.”
Giovanni’s jaw tightened. “The doctors said the same.”
Vincent nodded. “Because it was true.”
Lucia’s anger became confusion. “Then why did she think she was in danger?”
“Because we were going to destroy her reputation, not her life.”
Clarissa whispered, “The forged transfers.”
Vincent smiled. “Exactly. By Monday, federal investigators would have received records making Helena look like the architect of a ten-million-dollar embezzlement. She would have spent the rest of her life defending her name.”
Giovanni took one slow step forward. “You planned to frame my wife.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To break you.”
A voice came from behind the coffin.
“No, Vincent. To replace him.”
A gray-haired man in a white linen shirt walked into the light.
Rafael Sanz.
Clarissa stopped breathing.
“Dad.”
Rafael smiled at her.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
Emilio looked at Clarissa, then at the man who had sent her into his life.
Rafael’s smile widened.
“You brought me Giovanni’s son exactly like I asked.”
The next chapters are on the left side of your screen.
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