Chapter 5 - The Woman Nobody Believed
Darkness changed people.
Roman had learned that young.
In daylight, men worried about appearances.
In darkness, instinct took over.
Some froze.
Some ran.
Some revealed exactly who they were.
When the cameras throughout Harbor Crest Tower went black, Roman did not move for three seconds.
He listened.
The fire alarms had stopped.
Emergency lights remained on.
No explosion.
No gunfire.
No screams.
That meant Victor’s immediate objective was not chaos.
It was invisibility.
“Cross.”
“Already on it.”
Cross called the security command center.
No response.
Another channel.
Nothing.
Roman looked at Emily.
“You stay with me.”
She gave him a tired look.
“I thought we established that.”
They descended toward the parking garage using the east stairs.
Cross led.
Two guards followed.
Roman stayed near Emily.
The stairwell smelled of concrete and metal.
She was breathing harder than the others.
Not from fear.
From hunger and exhaustion.
Roman noticed.
“When did you last eat?”
Emily almost tripped.
“What?”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“What yesterday?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“A sandwich around noon.”
Roman stopped.
Cross looked back.
Emily frowned.
“We’re chasing your criminal lawyer through a skyscraper and you want to discuss lunch?”
“You haven’t eaten in thirty-six hours.”
“I’ve had coffee.”
“That is not food.”
“Excellent observation.”
Roman took a protein bar from Cross’s emergency bag and handed it to her.
She stared.
“Seriously?”
“Eat.”
“I don’t take orders well.”
“I noticed.”
Cross said without turning, “Ms. Carter, please eat the bar so we can continue preventing disasters.”
Emily glared at him.
Then opened it.
Roman said nothing.
But some strange tightness in his chest eased when she took a bite.
They reached level B2.
The garage was enormous.
Rows of luxury vehicles disappeared beneath fluorescent lighting.
Victor and Vanessa were gone.
The black sedan remained.
Driver door open.
Cross approached carefully.
No one inside.
Roman examined the vehicle.
Keys missing.
Emily walked toward the passenger side.
“Roman?”
A phone rested on the seat.
Old-fashioned prepaid device.
The screen displayed a countdown.
00:06:12
Cross swore.
Roman stepped back.
Emily stared.
“Is that—”
“Probably not a bomb.”
“Probably?”
Cross examined it from a distance.
“Could be timed data wipe.”
Roman reached for it.
Cross blocked him.
“Let me.”
He picked up the phone.
Countdown continued.
5:58.
Only one application was open.
Audio recorder.
A file named:
EMILY CARTER
All three looked at her.
Emily’s face drained.
“No.”
Roman pressed play.
Her father’s voice came from the speaker.
Older recording quality.
But Emily knew it instantly.
“Millie.”
The garage disappeared.
For Emily, there was only sound.
Her father saying the nickname she had not heard since she was seventeen.
She gripped the edge of the car.
“Millie, if you’re hearing this, then someone finally did what I wasn’t brave enough to do.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Roman watched her carefully.
Edward continued.
“I’m sorry.”
Those words nearly broke her.
“I’m sorry for leaving you and your mother with questions. I thought I could fix this quietly.”
The recording crackled.
“I discovered somebody had modified safety systems in Moretti properties. At first I thought it was insurance fraud. Then I realized the failures happened before contracts changed hands.”
Roman’s expression sharpened.
“Contracts?”
Edward continued.
“If an accident occurred, businesses lost permits, projects stalled, ownership changed. People made money.”
Cross whispered, “Engineered accidents.”
“Your mother wanted me to go to the police,” Edward said, “but I didn’t know who I could trust.”
Emily covered her mouth.
Her mother had known something.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
“I made copies. I hid them somewhere nobody would search because the building was scheduled for demolition. Warehouse C. Beneath elevator three.”
Roman and Cross exchanged a glance.
Thomas’s message.
Ask Emily what her father hid beneath Warehouse C.
“I wrote the location in a place only Millie would remember.”
Emily whispered, “Where?”
Her father’s recording answered as though he could hear her.
“The green book.”
She froze.
Roman looked at her.
“What green book?”
Emily didn’t answer immediately.
Memory rushed back.
A children’s copy of The Secret Garden.
Green cloth cover.
Her father had read it to her when she was little.
After he died, she kept it.
Even after her mother lost the first apartment.
Even after moving twice.
Even after Emily herself lost nearly everything.
She had placed a few precious belongings into a rented storage locker in Queens before becoming homeless.
The book was there.
“My storage unit.”
Roman looked at the timer.
3:41.
Cross said, “Why a countdown?”
Emily listened.
The recording continued.
“One more thing, Millie. If Roman Moretti ever hears this, tell him his brother was right.”
Roman stepped closer.
“About what?”
Edward’s voice answered.
“The betrayal never started with Luca.”
Roman went still.
“It started with Salvatore.”
Roman’s father.
The countdown reached 2:58.
Then another voice entered Edward’s recording.
A door opening.
Footsteps.
Edward whispered:
“Someone’s here.”
The recording stopped.
Roman immediately copied the file to Cross’s secure device.
Timer continued.
2:21.
“What happens at zero?” Emily asked.
Cross shrugged.
“We leave it here.”
They moved twenty yards away.
Roman couldn’t stop thinking about Edward’s final sentence.
The betrayal started with Salvatore.
His father.
For decades, Salvatore Moretti had ruled the family with unquestioned authority.
Roman had admired him.
Feared him.
Spent half his life trying to become strong enough to stand beside him.
If Salvatore had been involved in whatever killed Edward Carter, Roman wanted the truth even if it destroyed the mythology surrounding his own family.
Countdown.
Thirty seconds.
Nothing happened.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
At zero, the phone screen changed.
A photograph appeared.
Vanessa.
She was sitting inside a room Roman recognized.
The old executive office at Warehouse C.
Beside her stood Victor.
A message appeared beneath the image.
MIDNIGHT. COME ALONE OR THE CARTER EVIDENCE BURNS.
Emily stared.
Roman looked at his watch.
11:48.
Twelve minutes.
Cross said, “Trap.”
Roman nodded.
“Obviously.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“No.”
Emily looked surprised.
Roman continued.
“I’m taking her.”
Cross nearly choked.
“That is not better.”
“They want Carter evidence. Emily may know how to find it.”
“I don’t.”
Roman looked at her.
“You know about the green book.”
“Which is across Queens.”
Roman turned to Cross.
“Send someone.”
“No.”
Emily’s voice was immediate.
Roman looked at her.
“No one goes into my storage unit.”
“We need the book.”
“Then I go.”
“We have twelve minutes.”
“Exactly.”
Roman studied her.
She would not yield.
Cross checked the map.
“Warehouse C is fifteen minutes without traffic.”
Roman looked toward the garage exit.
“We can make ten.”
Emily frowned.
“How?”
Cross opened the passenger door of a black SUV.
“You may want to finish that protein bar.”
Three minutes later, they were racing south through Manhattan.
Roman sat beside Emily in the back.
Cross drove.
Two security vehicles followed at a distance.
Emily looked through the window as the city blurred past.
“Why are you doing this?”
Roman glanced at her.
“Doing what?”
“Letting me come.”
“It’s your father’s evidence.”
“That’s not the whole answer.”
Roman remained silent.
Emily watched him.
For someone with such a dangerous reputation, he spent a surprising amount of time controlling what he said.
Finally he answered.
“Because tonight everybody who was supposed to protect me failed.”
Emily looked away.
“And the person who owed me nothing didn’t.”
She swallowed.
Outside, rain streaked the glass.
“Don’t turn me into something noble.”
“I didn’t.”
“I delivered a letter.”
“You spent your last four dollars doing it.”
Emily smiled faintly.
“That part was stupid.”
“Probably.”
They looked at each other.
For one strange moment, the danger disappeared.
Then Cross said, “We’ve got company.”
Headlights appeared behind them.
A dark sedan.
Then another.
Roman looked back.
“Victor?”
“Maybe.”
The first sedan accelerated.
Cross changed lanes.
Emily grabbed the door handle.
“Is this normal?”
Roman almost smiled.
“No.”
“That’s comforting.”
The sedan pulled alongside.
Its rear window lowered.
Cross shouted, “Down!”
Roman pushed Emily toward the floor.
A loud crack shattered the SUV’s rear side window.
No bullet.
A tracking dart embedded in the seat.
Roman ripped it free.
“They’re marking us.”
Cross turned hard onto a side street.
The second sedan followed.
Roman looked at the tracker.
Then at Emily.
“Victor doesn’t want us dead.”
“Not yet.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“He wants us to lead him to the evidence.”
Emily understood.
“The green book.”
Roman nodded.
“So we don’t go to your storage unit.”
“Then how do we find the evidence?”
Roman looked toward the approaching Brooklyn skyline.
“We let Victor think he won.”
At 11:57, the SUV turned toward Red Hook.
Warehouse C appeared ahead.
Abandoned.
Dark.
Waiting.
The old freight tower stood against the night like a broken spine.
Emily stared at it.
Her father had died there twelve years ago.
Or so she had believed.
Roman checked his watch.
11:59.
The warehouse doors opened by themselves.
And inside, beneath a single hanging light, Vanessa Sinclair was waiting.
May you like
Alone.
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