Chapter 6 - THE COST OF SAYING WHO DID IT
Warehouse 14 faced the Intracoastal Waterway behind a row of boat-repair yards. The morning sun reflected off the metal siding hard enough to hurt Vittorio’s eyes.
Marco waited beside the loading entrance.
Isabella stood several feet away in the same ivory dress, though one heel was broken and gravel dust marked the hem.
Renzo sat inside the warehouse, tied to a chair but upright.
Vittorio and Alessio stopped where Marco could see both their hands.
“You brought the records?” Marco asked.
Alessio held up the folder.
Isabella looked at Vittorio. “You were supposed to get in the car.”
Her voice cracked at the end.
“You watched me kiss you good-bye this morning,” Vittorio said.
“I watched you leave for another meeting where men decided our lives without me.”
“So you decided to kill me.”
“You gave my brother to the government.”
“No,” Alessio said. “I did.”
Isabella turned.
For a second, she looked almost annoyed, as if he had interrupted with an irrelevant correction.
Alessio continued. “Gabriel was going to attack the hotel fundraiser. There were more than eighty civilians inside. I gave up the meeting.”
She shook her head. “Marco showed me the file.”
“Marco changed it.”
Isabella looked at Marco.
He did not deny it.
That hurt her more than denial would have.
“You told me Vittorio traded Gabriel for immunity.”
“I told you what you needed to hear,” Marco said. “You wanted revenge. I wanted the routes.”
Isabella stepped away from him.
Marco seized her arm. Vittorio moved forward, but Renzo spoke from inside.
“Remote.”
Marco’s free hand was wrapped around a small black device.
The same device that had closed the estate gates.
Alessio placed the folder on the pavement. “Dean sold you the sedan schedule and my evacuation plan. You used both.”
Marco smiled. “Dean also gave me your prosecutor’s name.”
Vittorio understood the threat. Marco intended to destroy the records, kill the witnesses and make the brothers’ cooperation look like another family rumor.
What Marco did not know was that the original freight ledgers had already been transferred to the prosecutor that morning when Vittorio signed the authorization.
The folder on the pavement contained copies.
Vittorio told him.
Marco’s grip loosened.
Renzo used the moment to drive his shoulder into the chair beside him. It toppled, striking Marco’s knee. Isabella tore free.
Alessio crossed the distance and knocked the remote from Marco’s hand. Vittorio kicked it beneath a parked forklift.
No gunfire followed. No army of loyal men appeared.
Only four exhausted adults stood in a dirty warehouse with the lies they had chosen.
Isabella pressed herself against the metal wall.
“I loved you,” she told Vittorio.
He believed she might be telling the truth.
That did not erase the sedan.
“You loved the man you hoped would confess,” he said. “When he didn’t, you let Marco tell you what that meant.”
Her eyes filled, but she did not ask forgiveness.
Marco tried to reach the side door. Renzo, still bound to the chair, extended one leg and blocked his path long enough for Alessio to restrain him with a plastic freight tie.
Vittorio untied Renzo himself.
“I should have listened to you,” he said.
Renzo rubbed circulation back into his wrists. “You should have listened to everyone.”
Sirens were still miles away when Alessio called the prosecutor and gave the warehouse address.
Marco looked at Vittorio with disbelief.
“You’re handing me to the government?”
“I’m handing them all of us.”
For the first time, Marco appeared afraid.
Isabella sat on the warehouse floor, staring at Alessio.
“My brother died believing Vittorio betrayed him.”
Alessio’s face tightened. “I know.”
May you like
Outside, the distant sirens grew louder.
There was no longer enough time for any of them to choose a more comfortable truth.
