CHAPTER 21
NICO
Sofia’s signal left the highway near Red Hook.
Elena tracked it from the passenger seat while I drove. The screen lit her face in the dark interior, making the exhaustion beneath her eyes impossible to ignore.
She had slept perhaps four hours in three days.
I had already decided she would not enter the port.
That decision lasted until I remembered the rules we had established less than twelve hours earlier.
Advise. Explain. Do not replace her judgment merely because fear made mine louder.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“The vehicle turned onto Bay Street.”
“Port access?”
“Not directly. There are warehouses and repair yards before the terminals.”
“Adrian’s signal?”
“Still stopped.”
“How far behind us?”
She checked our position. “Seven minutes.”
“Call the Bellandi Grand.”
“Why?”
“I want access to every camera your hotels use near the waterfront.”
“We do not own a hotel near Red Hook.”
“Your transport vendors operate there.”
Her fingers moved across the phone.
“You remembered that.”
“You mentioned it during the furniture investigation.”
She glanced at me.
The surprise irritated me more than it should have.
I had spent months learning details about Elena without permission. Remembering something she had chosen to tell me felt different.
Thomas answered.
“Elena,” he said, his voice rough with sleep. “Is this another archival emergency?”
“Sofia was taken.”
The exhaustion disappeared from his tone.
“What do you need?”
“Which Bellandi freight contractors use Red Hook?”
“Four. Maybe five.”
“Send their yard cameras and gate contacts to this secure number.”
“I’ll need authorization.”
“You have it.”
“From Carlo?”
“From me.”
There was a pause.
Then Thomas said, “Yes, ma’am.”
Elena ended the call.
Her expression remained fixed on Sofia’s moving signal.
“You gave him authority without checking the legal structure,” I said.
“I am the operations director.”
“That is not the same as controlling every contractor.”
“No. It means the contractor wants to be paid next month.”
The vehicle ahead slowed.
The signal moved onto a narrow road parallel to the waterfront.
Adrian’s tracker remained motionless near the highway exit.
I called his emergency line.
No answer.
One of the cars behind us reported that a team had reached his last location.
“They found Adrian’s vehicle,” the guard said. “Driver’s side struck. Blood on the window. No body.”
Alive, then.
Probably.
The uncertainty settled in a part of me trained not to react until facts arrived.
Elena heard the report.
“Could he be in Sofia’s vehicle?”
“Yes.”
“Would they take him alive?”
“If they wanted something.”
“Marco’s files.”
“Yes.”
The screen updated.
Sofia’s signal stopped.
Elena enlarged the map.
“Warehouse row. Near a freight yard.”
Thomas sent the camera links.
Four small windows appeared. Grainy images showed gates, trucks and empty yards under harsh security lighting.
On the third feed, a dark van crossed the frame.
Blue pigment marked the inner edge of the rear door where it had not fully closed.
“That one,” Elena said.
“Address?”
She read it.
I relayed the location to the teams.
“We enter from the north and east,” I said. “You stay in the vehicle with two guards and control the cameras.”
Elena looked at me.
I continued before she could object.
“The warehouse belongs to your freight contractor. You understand its access system better than anyone approaching with a gun. I need you where you can see all entrances and open them for us.”
It was the truth.
It was also safer.
Both facts could coexist.
“What if the camera system has been altered?” she asked.
“Then you tell me before I walk into a blind corridor.”
She considered the plan.
“All right.”
The agreement came without resentment.
Fear did not leave me. It changed shape.
The warehouse stood behind a chain-link fence topped with wire. Two loading bays faced the street. A narrow administrative entrance sat near the north corner.
The main gate was closed.
Elena studied the access panel through the contractor feed.
“The system is tied to the Bellandi freight account,” she said. “I can unlock the vehicle gate remotely.”
“Do not open it yet.”
“I know.”
“I am advising.”
“You are repeating.”
I parked half a block away.
The teams split.
Elena took the rear seat with two guards, a tablet and a radio linked directly to me. Her fingers were steady now. Anger had replaced panic with purpose.
I leaned into the open door.
“If anything approaches this car, you leave.”
“I tell the driver to leave.”
“Yes.”
“I decide whether I remain with him.”
“Elena.”
Her gaze lifted.
I saw the argument forming and stopped it.
“If the car is directly attacked, the immediate-threat rule applies. The driver removes you whether either of us likes it.”
She looked at the two guards.
They avoided her eyes.
“Fine.”
It was not enthusiasm.
It was agreement.
I closed the door.
The north team moved first. I approached the administrative entrance with two men while another pair covered the loading bays.
Elena’s voice came through the earpiece.
“One person moving behind the west office window.”
“Armed?”
“Cannot see his hands.”
“Other movement?”
“Vehicle bay. Two figures.”
“Location of Sofia’s tracker?”
“Inside the central loading area.”
I reached the door.
“Unlock north entrance.”
A soft click.
I entered.
The office smelled of oil, cardboard and stale coffee. A man rose from behind the desk with a gun.
I shot him before he raised it.
The sound filled the small room.
Elena’s breathing came through the radio.
I wanted to tell her I was unhurt.
There was no time to make reassurance ceremonial.
“North office clear,” I said.
“Two figures moved toward you from the bay.”
We advanced into the corridor.
A bullet struck the wall near my shoulder.
My men returned fire.
One attacker fell. The other disappeared through a steel door.
“Where?” I asked.
Elena answered immediately.
“Central bay. He is moving toward Sofia.”
We reached the steel door.
Locked.
“Elena.”
“I see it.”
A second passed.
The lock released.
Inside, the warehouse opened into a high space filled with pallets, freight containers and idle machinery. Light fell in hard white columns from the ceiling.
Sofia sat on the floor beside the dark van.
Her hands were bound in front of her.
A man stood behind her with a gun pressed beneath her jaw.
Adrian lay near the vehicle, one side of his face covered in blood. His eyes were open.
Alive.
The gunman pulled Sofia upright.
“Drop it.”
I did not.
Sofia looked at me.
The blue pigment on her finger had spread across the restraints. One wrist was raw where she had been working the plastic tie against something sharp.
“Marco’s drive,” the man said. “Now.”
“You do not leave with it,” I said.
“I leave with the girl.”
“No.”
Sofia’s eyes moved past me toward the loading controls.
Not at the man holding her.
At the machinery behind him.
A suspended freight barrier hung above the bay entrance. It could separate trucks from the loading area during inspection.
Elena’s voice sounded in my ear.
“I can lower the barrier.”
The gunman could hear no part of our communication.
“Wait,” I said.
His weapon pressed harder against Sofia.
“You have three seconds.”
Sofia shifted her weight.
The man tightened his hold.
Her right hand came free.
She had cut the restraint.
She drove her elbow backward into his ribs and dropped.
“Elena. Now.”
The freight barrier crashed down between Sofia and the gunman.
The metal edge struck his shoulder and knocked the weapon aside.
I fired through the gap before he recovered.
He fell.
Sofia crawled away.
I reached her first.
She struck at me before recognizing my face.
“It’s me.”
Her body stopped fighting.
“Adrian.”
“I know.”
I handed her to one of my men and went to him.
A deep cut crossed his temple. His left arm lay at an unnatural angle, but he was conscious.
“You took your time,” he said.
“You stopped answering.”
“My phone is in the harbor.”
“Convenient.”
He tried to sit.
Pain stopped him.
“What happened?”
“I followed the van. They forced me off the road, then brought me here after I killed one of them.”
“Why keep you alive?”
“They thought I had Marco’s files.”
Sofia came closer despite the guard attempting to hold her back.
“They asked him about the cufflink,” she said. “They knew it contained something.”
“Who told them?”
Neither answered.
The surviving attacker from the corridor groaned near the steel door.
Alive.
I moved toward him.
Elena’s voice stopped me.
“Nico.”
“What?”
“Do not kill him.”
The man had pointed a weapon at Sofia. Part of me had already decided what his remaining life should contain.
“He may know who sent them,” Elena continued.
“I am aware.”
“Then bring him back alive.”
The request carried no apology for asking.
No fear that I would refuse because vengeance was easier.
I looked at the wounded man.
“Medical team enters now,” I told the guards. “He remains conscious.”
I crossed to Sofia.
“Are you hurt?”
“My wrists. He struck me once.”
“Where?”
She touched her cheek.
Anger returned with such force that the warehouse narrowed.
I did not act on it.
Sofia watched me understand the choice.
“Where is Elena?” she asked.
“Outside.”
“I want her.”
I radioed the vehicle.
“Sofia is secure.”
No response came for a second.
Then Elena said, “Is she conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Can she walk?”
“Yes.”
“Adrian?”
“Alive. Injured.”
“I am coming inside.”
The immediate threat had ended.
I could advise.
Not prevent.
“North entrance,” I said. “Stay with the guards.”
Elena arrived less than a minute later.
She crossed the warehouse at a run.
Sofia moved toward her.
They collided near the van, arms closing around each other with enough force that both nearly lost balance.
Elena held her sister’s face, checked her wrists and spoke too quietly for me to hear.
Sofia began crying only after she was safe enough to stop resisting it.
I looked away.
Adrian was placed on a stretcher.
As the medics lifted him, he caught my sleeve.
“The driver,” he said.
“What about him?”
“Sofia recognized him.”
I turned.
Elena was asking the same question.
Sofia wiped her face.
“He worked for Uncle Vittorio,” she said. “Years ago. His name is Paolo.”
Elena became still.
“Are you sure?”
“He drove us to school when I was little.”
The answer damaged something inside her.
It did not prove Vittorio had ordered the abduction.
It dragged the danger backward into childhood.
The past had begun opening doors everywhere we looked.
My men searched the dead gunman.
His phone contained no saved contacts. The last incoming message used a masked number.
One text remained visible.
brING BOTH SISTERS IF POSSIBLE. THE OLDER ONE READS THE FILES.
They did not want Elena only because she was an heir.
They needed what she knew.
She read the message over my shoulder.
“Marco was right,” she said.
“About what?”
“I am not the person they are trying to protect from the truth.”
Her gaze moved to Sofia.
“I am the person they need to stop from understanding it.”