Chapter 5
They moved through the service spine of the skyscraper, bypassing the polished marble lobby where the city thought Dante Valenti lived. The steel freight elevator groaned as it sank through forty-eight levels of concrete, dropping straight into the sub-basement mechanics where steam hissed from iron pipes.
Two of Julian’s most trusted men were already waiting near the loading bay, carbines hidden beneath heavy canvas jackets, their faces grim under flickering yellow bulbs. Outside the roll-up door, rain began to lash against the pavement, washing the soot of the alley into bubbling gutters.
Julian checked his tactical display on his wrist and nodded once toward the shadows. “No heat signatures in the immediate alleyway, boss, but two dark utility vans have been idling three blocks north since eight o’clock. They’re boxing the perimeter.”
“Let them watch the front gates,” Dante murmured, ushering Emma and the child into the reinforced back seat of the heavy black vehicle. “They expect me to fortify my home. They don’t expect me to walk into the rain to chase a dead man’s locker.”
The heavy diesel engine turned over with a low, muffled rumble that vibrated through the floorboards. Julian slipped the vehicle into gear, easing it into the torrential rain without headlights, sliding like a phantom along the narrow, cobblestone back streets toward the industrial docks of Brooklyn.
Emma sat stiffly, her knuckles white where she gripped the worn brass key. “The locker is at an old maritime storage yard near the Navy Yard,” she whispered, staring at the rain streaking the tinted glass. “Daniel called it his insurance, but it felt like a curse.”
“What kind of financial records did your husband manage?” Dante asked, turning halfway in the front passenger seat, his eyes scanning the side mirrors for tailing lights. “A simple accountant doesn’t draw hit squads who possess dormant government satellite frequencies.”
Emma pulled a second, smaller key from the lining of her purse and opened the box. Inside lay an external hard drive, three handwritten ledger notebooks, and a yellowed photograph of Daniel holding Lily when she was barely an infant in a hospital blanket.
“He audited shipping freight for a firm called Apex Logistics,” Emma said, her voice shaking slightly against the steady hum of the tires. “He found phantom manifests—shipments labeled as industrial machine parts that weighed nothing, followed by massive wire transfers from offshore accounts.”
“Apex Logistics isn’t a commercial freight company,” Dante remarked, his eyes narrowing into cold slits as the pieces fell into place. “It was a front company owned by Salvatore Moretti before he went to federal prison six years ago. The old guard.”