Chapter 4

The drive from Vitale Shipping to Warehouse B-17 took twenty minutes.

Luca made it in twelve.

The black sedan tore through the port gate before the guard could raise the barrier. A wheel scraped the curb, throwing a streak of sparks. I sat rigid in the passenger seat, watching the streetlights rush backward. I had been here only once in my first life.

It was seven days after my sister's funeral. Father sent me to the riverbank and made me swear before several family elders that I would never leave Luca. They said Isabella had jumped from the stone bridge behind B-17. I had knelt beside that bridge and begged her forgiveness.

I had believed she jumped. Now I understood the river bend was only where her killer disposed of the body.

"How many exits does the warehouse have?" Luca asked.

"Three. The main entrance, a loading bay on the west side, and a drainage channel leading to the river."

He glanced at me.

"The floor plan of an abandoned warehouse isn't a secret either?"

"This isn't the time to interrogate me."

The tendons stood out across his hands on the wheel.

"If something happens to Isabella--"

"Find her first."

I had no idea whether we were already too late. I simply could not think about the body they had pulled from the river. We stopped behind a stack of shipping containers two hundred meters from the warehouse. Marco took his men to seal the front. In a few sentences, Luca assigned entry positions and retreat routes, even deciding where Dr. Rossi's car would wait. Then he checked his magazine and prepared to enter from the west. I started toward the river. He caught my arm.

"Stay in the car."

"Only one person can fit through the drainage channel. They won't expect anyone to use it."

"You're not going."

"My sister is in there. I won't sit in the car." I pulled free.

I went down the embankment. Luca cursed under his breath and followed. As we neared the drain, he moved past me and put his gun into the darkness first. Only after he confirmed there was no ambush did he signal me forward. The iron grate had rusted shut. In my first life, I had seen dockworkers pry it open with a crowbar hidden behind the third retaining stone. I reached into the mud and found it. Luca's expression hardened.

"You've been here before."

"For a funeral."

He did not understand.

I did not explain. The grate opened with a soft scrape. One behind the other, we crawled through the wet concrete channel and into the basement beneath the warehouse. Men's voices drifted above us.

"The boat arrives in ten minutes. Change her clothes first."

"Why bother? Why not throw her in now?"

"They want it to look like suicide. A pregnant woman jumps into the river because of her fiance's scandal. It's a convincing story."

I stopped moving. They had prepared the white dress and syringe in advance. My sister's death had never been a hurried attempt to silence a witness. Luca pressed a hand to my shoulder, warning me not to speak, then drew his gun and pointed toward the far side of the vent.

I nodded.

We climbed out through opposite ends of the underground passage. A single work light burned in the center of the warehouse. Isabella was tied to a wooden chair, tape over her mouth. An open garment bag lay beside her. Inside was the white dress she had worn to her engagement banquet. One man filled a syringe. Another stood with his back to me, guarding the door to the river. I aimed at the man with the needle.

"Drop it."

He spun.

Our guns fired at the same time. His bullet grazed my shoulder and shattered the window behind me. My first shot struck his wrist. My second entered his thigh. The man at the river door began to raise his gun, but Luca came out of the shadows and drove into him. They hit a storage rack. Steel drums crashed to the floor, alerting the guards outside.

I ran to my sister and cut the ropes from her wrists.

"The baby--" Her lips were white. "They injected me with something."

"Rossi is coming."

As I helped her stand, the wounded man caught my ankle. His other hand reached for a knife at his belt. I turned and pressed the muzzle of my gun into the hollow of his shoulder.

"Who sent you?"

Sweat covered his face, but he smiled through the pain.

"A dead woman doesn't need to know."

"Then answer a living woman's question."

I pulled the trigger.

The bullet struck the concrete beside him. Fragments cut his cheek.

"The next one won't miss."

His smile vanished.

"The Old Lion," he panted. "We take orders from the Old Lion."

The younger Morettis used the wolf as their emblem. Among the older generation, only Salvatore was called the Lion.

Across the warehouse came the dull crack of bone. Luca forced the last attacker to the floor and pressed a gun to the back of his neck. Marco and his men broke through the door.

"Take the survivors," Luca said. "Question them separately."

He walked toward us. He looked at Isabella first, confirming she could stand, then at the blood on my shoulder.

"You've been shot."

"It's a graze."

"Get in the car."

"Check Isabella first."

Luca took off his coat and pressed it against my wound. His hand was rough and his voice colder still.

"I said, get in the car."

The command took me back to the years of our marriage. I pushed his hand away.

"See to Isabella. Don't give me orders."

His hand stopped. My sister looked between us but said nothing. When Dr. Rossi arrived, he confirmed she had received a small dose of sedative. The baby was safe for now. We stayed at the port clinic until dawn. When my sister woke, she saw the bandage on my shoulder and immediately asked how badly I was hurt.

"I'm fine."

She looked down at the bandage and wrapped her arms around me. The last time she had held me this way, we were children. Later, the only image left in my memory was of her crying in the doorway of Room 217.

"I'm sorry," she said against my shoulder.

"For what?"

"I always knew Father treated you as my replacement. I thought if I did everything well enough, he would never need to use you."

She released me. Her eyes were red.

"The threats began when I became pregnant. An hour before the banquet, I saw Father leaving the wine cellar. When I asked what he was doing, he said he was inspecting the gifts for the Morettis."

Father.

I was not surprised, but cold still spread through my chest.

"Why didn't you tell Luca?"

My sister looked into the corridor. Luca stood at the far end listening to Marco's report. His back was straight, his profile severe. Everyone who passed him moved aside without thinking.

"Because this engagement was never about love," she said. "He needs the Vitale port. Father needs the Moretti guns. The child only makes the contract harder to break."

"Do you want to marry him?"

She thought for a long time, then shook her head.

"I just don't know where else I can go."

Once, I would not have known how to answer either. The door opened. Father entered with four Vitale men. Relief crossed his face when he saw Isabella alive. Then every ounce of his anger turned on me.

"Haven't you caused enough trouble? You're coming home."

"Which one?" I asked.

"What?"

"Are you taking home the perfect alliance bride, or the daughter who can replace her at any moment?"

Father's face darkened. Luca came down the corridor and stopped in the doorway.

"They remain under Moretti protection."

"They are Vitales."

"The men who abducted Isabella used a Vitale warehouse."

Father answered too quickly.

I saw it.

"That warehouse has been abandoned for years. Anyone could enter," he said, recovering quickly. "Luca, you should question the real suspects instead of accusing an ally."

His eyes shifted coldly to me.

"Especially someone who was supposed to finish that glass, then changed her mind."

The room fell silent. Father realized his mistake at once, but too late.

He knew the champagne was drugged.