Chapter 5 - What Marcus Wanted Beneath the Waterfront
Daniel Reeves was found forty minutes later.
Alive.
Barely.
Someone had run his car off a service road in New Jersey.
He had escaped with a broken arm, three cracked ribs, and enough fear to erase whatever loyalty he once possessed toward Marcus.
Isabella stood outside his hospital room while detectives questioned him.
Alessandro remained at the end of the corridor.
He had spent the morning making calls.
Isabella had spent the morning making threats to banks.
Different worlds.
Same objective.
Finally Daniel’s wife emerged.
“He wants to see you.”
Inside, Daniel looked ten years older.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Isabella sat.
“You already said that.”
“I mean about everything.”
“I know.”
He swallowed.
“Marcus made me pull records from the waterfront property.”
“What records?”
“Environmental surveys. Historical deeds. Subsurface reports.”
Isabella frowned.
“Why?”
“There’s something under parcel seven.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Daniel.”
“I swear.”
He winced.
“I found an old title transfer from 1987. The land didn’t originally belong to the city.”
“Who owned it?”
Daniel looked toward the door.
“The Vieri family.”
Isabella slowly turned.
Alessandro stood beyond the glass.
Her heartbeat changed.
“What?”
“Marco Vieri transferred it through three companies before it eventually entered municipal ownership.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t find out.”
“And Marcus?”
“He knows.”
“How?”
“Someone gave him archived records.”
Isabella stared at Alessandro.
He met her eyes.
Did he know?
She thanked Daniel and walked into the corridor.
“You knew.”
Alessandro did not pretend ignorance.
“I knew the family had interests there.”
“Interests?”
“Years ago.”
“Your father owned my development site.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think that was relevant?”
“I didn’t know Marcus was looking for something under it.”
“What is under parcel seven?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
She searched his face.
“Then we find out.”
Three hours later Isabella, Alessandro, two engineers, and a private survey team entered the waterfront construction zone.
Parcel seven sat beneath what would eventually become the central hotel.
Excavation had not yet reached full depth.
An older retaining structure remained beneath the foundation.
One engineer pointed toward a sealed concrete access corridor that did not appear on modern plans.
“That shouldn’t be there.”
Alessandro went still.
Isabella noticed.
“You recognize it.”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“My father used to own warehouses here.”
“How many?”
“Six.”
“What kind?”
“Shipping.”
“Legal shipping?”
He looked at her.
“That depends which decade you’re asking about.”
They entered the corridor.
Dust covered the walls.
At the end stood an old steel door.
No handle.
One engineer used cutting equipment.
Twenty minutes later the lock gave.
Inside was not money.
Not drugs.
Not weapons.
Files.
Boxes and boxes of paper records.
Photographs.
Ledgers.
Old videotapes.
Alessandro’s face hardened.
“What is this?” Isabella whispered.
He lifted one ledger.
His father’s handwriting.
“This is impossible.”
“Why?”
“These records were supposed to have been destroyed.”
“What records?”
He flipped through pages.
Names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Politicians.
Police officials.
Judges.
Construction companies.
Union representatives.
Bribes.
Payments.
Deals stretching back thirty years.
Isabella suddenly understood.
Marcus did not want her company.
He wanted access to the land.
Because beneath it was enough information to destroy careers, families, corporations—
Maybe governments.
“How did Marcus know?” she asked.
Alessandro looked around the room.
“My father told someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Isabella noticed a smaller metal box beneath a table.
She opened it.
Inside were personal files.
One carried her father’s name.
JAVIER MARQUEZ.
Her breath stopped.
“Alessandro.”
He saw the folder.
“No.”
She opened it.
Inside were photographs of her father meeting Marco Vieri.
Letters.
Bank documents.
And one handwritten note.
If anything happens to me, Alessandro must keep Isabella away from this.
Isabella stared at the sentence.
Her father had been dead twelve years.
Heart attack.
Sudden.
Natural.
Or so she had always been told.
“What did my father know?”
Alessandro looked devastated.
“That’s what I never wanted you to find.”
Her voice dropped.
“You knew.”
“Some of it.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
She slapped him.
The sound echoed through the underground room.
Everyone froze.
Alessandro did not move.
Isabella’s hand shook.
“You knew something about my father’s death.”
“Yes.”
“Was it a heart attack?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not the whole answer.”
“No.”
Her eyes burned.
“Tell me.”
Alessandro looked toward the others.
“Leave us.”
They did.
Isabella waited.
“My father and yours worked together in the late nineties.”
“I knew they did business.”
“Your father wanted out.”
“Out of what?”
“Money laundering through development projects.”
Her stomach dropped.
“My father was a criminal?”
“He made mistakes.”
“That’s a nice phrase.”
“He also tried to correct them.”
“How?”
“He collected evidence.”
Isabella looked at the boxes.
“This?”
“Some of it.”
“He planned to go to federal authorities.”
“And?”
“My father discovered it.”
“What did Marco do?”
Alessandro’s jaw tightened.
“He let your father leave.”
She blinked.
“That doesn’t sound like the legendary Marco Vieri.”
“He loved your father.”
“They were friends?”
“Closer than friends.”
Isabella looked at the note again.
“Then why was I supposed to stay away?”
Alessandro said nothing.
Her heartbeat quickened.
“This is connected to the letter.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“When you were sixteen, your father saw the letter before I could answer.”
Everything inside her stopped.
“What?”
“He came to me that night.”
“What did he say?”
Alessandro’s voice was quiet.
“He told me if I cared about you, I would never encourage what you felt.”
“Because I was sixteen.”
“That was part of it.”
“What was the other part?”
“He knew people were watching both families.”
“Marcus?”
“Not Marcus. His father.”
Isabella frowned.
“Victor Vain?”
“Yes.”
The late Victor Vain had been one of Marco’s rivals.
“He knew your father wanted to cooperate with authorities,” Alessandro continued. “Javier believed anyone close to the Vieris could become a target.”
“And you listened to him.”
“Yes.”
“You never answered.”
“No.”
“You kept the letter.”
“Yes.”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
Not tears she intended to release.
Tears of rage.
“You let me believe I meant nothing.”
Alessandro’s face cracked for the first time.
“You meant too much.”
She turned away.
“That is not romantic.”
“I know.”
“It was cruel.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get points for protecting me from a danger I didn’t understand by hurting me in another way.”
“I know.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You really like that phrase.”
“Because there is nothing I can say that makes what I did painless.”
Isabella looked at him.
“Why didn’t you tell me later?”
“Because your father made me promise.”
“My father is dead.”
“He died still believing the danger existed.”
“And did it?”
Alessandro looked at the files surrounding them.
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then Isabella noticed something.
A recent footprint in the dust.
Not theirs.
Fresh.
She pointed.
“Someone has been here.”
Alessandro crouched.
Another footprint.
Then another.
Leading toward a rear passage.
One box had been removed.
On the floor where it had sat, someone had written a message in the dust.
MARCUS HAS THE REST.
Isabella stared.
The underground room was not the secret.
It was only half of it.
May you like
And somewhere, Marcus Vain possessed records that could expose whatever had really happened between their fathers.
Maybe even what happened the night Javier Marquez died.
