The Cell Below

 

The freight lift dropped through fifty floors of concrete and steel, stopping in the sub-basement with a dull jerk.

Down here, it smelled like damp lime and machine grease. No windows, no street noise. Just the low hum of transformer units behind chain-link cages.

Marcus was waiting at the end of the hall. He had unclipped his vest at the shoulders, and his forearms were black with soot. He had an iPad tucked under one arm.

"Two in custody," Marcus said. "The driver from the ramp, and her."

"The driver?" Dante asked, not slowing down.

"Moretti soldier. Collarbone's busted. Hasn't said a word."

"Let him sit with it," Dante said. "Open the gate."

I stayed behind him. I had on his coat over my slip, tied tight at the waist, and a pair of flat leather slides Marcus had pulled out of a locker. My feet were cold against the concrete. Dante hadn't told me to stay on fifty, and I wasn't about to ask.

Marcus hit the keycard against the reader. The magnetic lock gave a short hiss, and the iron door swung out.

The cell was eight by ten. One bare bulb in a wire cage overhead. No bench, no mattress. Just poured concrete and a round floor drain.

Seraphina was balled up in the corner with her knees against her chest.

Her black coat was torn at the shoulder, her blonde hair hung in greasy clumps, and her mascara was smeared down both cheeks. Her boots were gone the guards had tossed them into the hall.

When the hinge squeaked, she threw both hands over her face.

"Don't touch me!" she yelled, her voice bouncing hard off the walls. "Arthur has accounts in Panama! He'll pay whatever "

She stopped.

She lowered her hands, squinting against the light. Her eyes landed on Dante, then drifted over to me and the coat I was wearing.

The panic on her face vanished, replaced by pure disgust.

"You brought her down here?" Seraphina said, pushing herself up against the wall. "To gloat? You throw me in a cellar and bring the help along to watch?"

Dante walked into the cell. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the white keycard marked 004-B, and dropped it on the floor.

It skittered across the concrete, stopping at her toes.

"Where is Marco Moretti?" Dante asked.

His voice was dead level. No shouting. Just flat.

Seraphina looked down at the card, then back up at him. She tried to stick her chin out the way she always did when Arthur started yelling about the credit card bills.

"I don't know who that is," she said.

Dante didn't move an inch. "You used his van from the border. You had six of his men on my roof. You came into the garage in his Suburban at twenty-three forty. If you lie to me again, Marcus turns off the lift to the hospital, and your driver bleeds out."

"He made me do it!" she shouted, taking half a step toward him. "Arthur owed them millions in Gary! Marco told me if I didn't get your terminal codes, he'd take a box cutter to my face! I had to get out, Dante!"

"So you gave them my sister's room," Dante said.

Seraphina let out a short, ugly laugh.

"Your sister is dead! She's been dead twenty years! Who keeps a kid's bedroom locked up behind a code like a museum? You cared more about a ghost than you ever did about me! I was the bride!"

"You were never going to be my wife," Dante said.

He took one step forward.

Seraphina's laugh died. She hit the back wall hard with her shoulders.

"You took two and a half million from my account," Dante said. "You had a passport and a flight to Zurich. Your father's balance was cleared. But you couldn't take it, could you?"

She clamped her mouth shut, breathing through her nose.

"You saw the news from St. Michael's," Dante continued. "You saw the city didn't care that you ran. The name didn't burn down. Eloise took the vows, and nobody looked for you."

"She's nobody!" Seraphina screamed, pointing a shaking finger at me. "Look at her! She wore my old sweaters! She washed the dishes while I went to dinners! She sat in a cell for three days because she was too stupid to tell the cops I was the one driving the Mercedes! You married a stray dog!"

I stepped past the doorframe and stopped next to Dante.

The reflex to look down the habit I'd had since I was twelve was completely gone. Standing there barefoot on the wet floor, with her makeup running and her coat ripped, she didn't look like the sister who used to run our house. She just looked loud and desperate.

"I didn't take the blame because I was stupid," I told her. "I took it because grandmother needed her meds, and Arthur said he'd stop the checks if you got an arrest record."

Seraphina sneered at me. "And look what you got for it. Living in a dead girl's house with a guy who's going to dump you the second Moretti hits his docks."

"She's staying," Dante said.

He reached out, caught my wrist, and pulled me up beside him. His fingers were warm against my skin.

"She survived Arthur," Dante said to her. "She survived you. And tonight, she stood in that hall with a gun while you were beating on the elevator door."

He looked down at the plastic card on the floor.

"Marco Moretti wants my rail lines," Dante said. "He thinks he has leverage because you gave him a badge. Give me his yard, Seraphina. Or the state's attorney gets Arthur's books, plus the squad car footage from Lake Shore Drive five years ago."

Seraphina's mouth went slack. "The statute—"

"Doesn't cover a hit-and-run with forged plates," Dante cut in. "You'll do ten years in Logan sharing a bunk with people who don't give a damn about your hair."

Seraphina stared at him. The fight went right out of her. She slid down the concrete until she hit the floor with a dull thud, burying her face in her hands.

"The Pullman junction," she mumbled, her voice muffled against her knees. "Off 103rd. Behind the scrap yard. Three metal buildings by the tracks. That's where they keep the trucks."

Dante didn't answer. He turned around and walked out of the cell.

"Lock it," he told Marcus.

"Dante, wait!" Seraphina scrambled across the floor, her fingers clawing at the gap under the door. "You said you wouldn't send the tape! Dante!"

The iron door banged shut. The deadbolt dropped into place with a heavy click, cutting off her voice.

Dante didn't look back. He headed straight down the hall toward the freight lift.

"Marcus," he said as the gate rattled open.

"Yeah?"

"Four vans. Suppressed carbines. We hit Pullman at five."

"Got it." Marcus looked at me, then back at Dante. "What about her?"

Dante stopped at the elevator door. He looked down at me, his face unreadable under the bare hall light.

"She goes back to my room," he said. He reached out and wiped a streak of white plaster dust off my cheek with his thumb. "And Marcus... you stay outside the door with a rifle."