Chapter 2 - THE DEVICE UNDER GIANNI’S CAR
Nobody moved.
Maisie’s finger remained pointed toward the Russo sedan.
“Silver lunchbox.”
Rachel looked at Luca.
“What does she mean?”
He already knew.
So did Nico.
“Everybody away from the vehicles.”
Gianni’s expression changed.
Not fear.
Irritation.
“You’re letting a child control the room?”
Luca ignored him.
“Nico.”
His security chief moved toward the garage entrance and signaled everyone farther back.
Rachel pulled Maisie against her side.
“Come here.”
“But my flashlight—”
“Forget the flashlight.”
Maisie looked horrified.
“It’s pink.”
Luca almost laughed.
Almost.
“Buy her another one.”
Rachel shot him a look.
“That isn’t the point.”
No.
He supposed it wasn’t.
A mechanic from Rachel’s shop approached the Russo sedan cautiously.
Rachel stopped him.
“No.”
She looked at Luca.
“My shop. My tools.”
“You’re not going under that car.”
“I know what I’m looking at.”
“And you have a daughter standing fifteen feet away.”
That shut her up.
Barely.
Nico called a specialist Luca trusted.
Seven minutes later, the alley had become a frozen tableau.
Gianni Russo stood beneath the awning with his cane.
Isabella remained beside Luca.
Marco watched everybody.
Too carefully.
Maisie was inside the office now, eating crackers because apparently children could experience a murder conspiracy and still become hungry.
Rachel refused to leave the window.
The specialist finally emerged.
“Tracker.”
Nico exhaled.
“Anything else?”
The man looked toward Gianni.
“Not a normal one.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Explain.”
“Live transmitter with a secondary remote trigger.”
Gianni’s face went hard.
“For what?”
The specialist hesitated.
“Could be wired into another system. I need the vehicle isolated.”
Gianni looked at Marco.
Marco looked away.
That was small.
Too small for most people.
Not Luca.
“What did you put on his car?” Luca asked.
Marco laughed softly.
“This is insane.”
Isabella stepped forward.
“No. What’s insane is that three cars in one alley suddenly have problems and you’re the only man here pretending coincidence.”
Marco’s jaw tightened.
Gianni snapped:
“Enough.”
Everyone quieted.
He pointed his cane at Isabella.
“You have spent months undermining an alliance that would have ended bloodshed.”
“You mean months trying to find out why Daniel Bennett was killed.”
Rachel stiffened.
Gianni’s eyes moved toward her.
“This does not concern you.”
“My husband is dead.”
“Your husband made choices.”
Luca saw Rachel’s face change.
Grief becoming rage.
He stepped slightly between her and Gianni.
Not because he thought Rachel would do something foolish.
Because he suspected Gianni wanted her to.
Angry witnesses make bad witnesses.
He knew the trick.
“Tell me about Daniel,” Luca said.
Gianni’s expression cooled.
“Ask your capo.”
Luca looked at Marco.
Marco smiled.
“Daniel was stealing.”
Rachel laughed in disbelief.
“My husband brought home sixty thousand a year and argued with me about buying brand-name cereal.”
Marco shrugged.
“Men change.”
“Not into idiots.”
That almost made Nico smile.
Marco’s eyes sharpened.
Rachel continued.
“Daniel didn’t steal from docks. He hated people taking things that weren’t theirs.”
“That sounds sentimental.”
“It sounds like you didn’t know him.”
Marco stepped toward her.
Luca stopped him with one look.
“Stay.”
Marco’s jaw flexed.
Luca turned to Isabella.
“You said Daniel had names.”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“Marco’s.”
Silence.
“And?”
Isabella looked at Gianni.
“My father’s.”
Gianni laughed.
“There it is.”
Rachel stared.
“Daniel thought both families were being robbed?”
“Yes.”
Isabella continued.
“Not by rival soldiers. By men who benefited from the war.”
Luca understood before she finished.
Missing Ferraro shipments blamed on Russos.
Russo trucks hit in Ferraro territory.
Warehouses burned.
Retaliation.
Every attack created permission for another.
Chaos became business.
“Marco and Gianni were manufacturing the war.”
Isabella nodded.
Gianni’s face showed contempt.
“You sound very proud of yourself.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“I’m ashamed it took me three years.”
Rachel’s voice broke.
“Why did Daniel die?”
Nobody answered.
She stepped closer.
“Why?”
Gianni glanced toward Marco.
Luca caught it.
Marco was the one.
Maybe not the shooter.
But the decision.
Rachel saw the glance too.
Her hands began shaking.
“You.”
Marco’s face remained blank.
“You killed my husband.”
“No.”
“Did you order it?”
Silence.
Then Maisie appeared in the office doorway holding two crackers.
Rachel turned immediately.
“Maisie, inside.”
“But—”
“Now.”
The child disappeared.
Marco smiled faintly.
“Smart.”
Rachel went white.
Luca stepped closer to him.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Wrong.”
Nico shifted to Marco’s right.
Isabella to Luca’s left.
Gianni watched.
Then Luca noticed something.
Gianni wasn’t worried about the tracker.
He was watching Marco.
Waiting.
For what?
Luca looked toward the Russo sedan.
Then the garage.
Then the third car.
“Who knew Gianni was alive?”
Nobody answered.
Isabella said:
“Very few.”
“Marco?”
Her eyes moved toward him.
“I didn’t think so.”
Gianni’s face hardened.
Luca understood.
The device under Gianni’s vehicle could not have been planted as part of Gianni and Marco’s shared plan if Gianni didn’t know it was there.
Someone was betraying him too.
He looked at Marco.
“You planned to kill both of us.”
Marco’s expression finally changed.
Gianni turned.
“What?”
Marco took one step backward.
Nico raised his weapon.
“Don’t.”
Marco laughed.
“Everybody suddenly believes children and mechanics?”
Luca looked at him.
“I believe patterns.”
“And the pattern says?”
“You cut my brake line.”
Silence.
“Tagged my backup.”
Another.
“Met Isabella this morning because she was following you.”
Marco’s eyes shifted.
“Daniel’s watch is on your wrist.”
Rachel stared at it again.
“And there’s a device under Gianni’s car that he didn’t expect.”
Luca’s voice became quiet.
“You weren’t helping him today.”
Gianni looked at Marco with sudden understanding.
“You were going to finish it.”
Marco’s face lost its smile.
Three years of alliance hidden under betrayal.
Then he said:
“You both became expensive.”
That was confession enough.
Gianni moved.
Not fast.
Old man.
Cane.
But he reached inside his coat.
Nico drew fully.
Luca snapped:
“Stop.”
Everyone froze.
Luca looked at Marco.
“Where is Daniel’s ledger?”
Marco said nothing.
Rachel stepped forward.
“Where?”
He smiled at her.
“You really think that notebook saves you?”
“That means you have it.”
“Had.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“What did you do?”
“Copied what mattered.”
“And original?”
Marco looked toward Gianni.
“Ask him.”
Gianni snapped:
“I never had it.”
Marco laughed.
“That’s the beautiful part.”
Luca hated games.
He stepped closer.
“Speak.”
Marco looked at him.
“Daniel didn’t keep one ledger.”
Rachel froze.
“What?”
“He made copies.”
Isabella inhaled sharply.
“How many?”
“Enough.”
“Where?”
Marco shrugged.
“Father Thomas knew.”
Luca’s stomach tightened.
Dead priest.
Dead mechanic.
Missing evidence.
Then Marco added:
“And apparently Daniel’s widow knows less than he expected.”
Rachel’s face hardened.
Luca watched her.
Something.
Too fast.
A flicker.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
“Rachel.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“What aren’t you saying?”
“Nothing.”
He stared.
She sighed.
“I hate that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you decide people are lying because they blink wrong.”
“Useful look.”
“Annoying look.”
Maisie called from the office:
“Mom!”
Rachel turned.
The girl came running out holding a small red toy truck.
“What?”
Maisie flipped it over.
Something had been taped inside the plastic chassis.
A tiny brass key.
Rachel stared.
“That’s Daniel’s.”
Luca crouched.
“What does it open?”
Rachel looked at the key.
Then toward the framed photograph of her husband.
Her face slowly changed.
“Our old storage locker.”
Nico said:
“Where?”
“Queens.”
Marco moved.
One sharp step toward the door.
Nico blocked him.
There it was.
Confirmation.
Luca looked at Marco.
“You know what’s in it.”
Marco’s expression went cold.
Rachel held the little key.
The key her dead husband had hidden inside his daughter’s toy.
A toy Maisie still played with three years later.
Luca almost admired Daniel Bennett.
Then Gianni said quietly:
“Get the locker.”
Luca turned.
Gianni’s eyes had become something ugly.
“This ends tonight.”
“No.”
Gianni stared.
Luca continued:
“It ends when I know who killed Daniel.”
Rachel looked at him.
“And why.”
Luca nodded.
“And why.”
Marco laughed.
“You’re both assuming the ledger matters.”
Luca looked at him.
“It mattered enough to murder for.”
Silence.
That was when Marco smiled.
Not nervous.
Not cornered.
Confident.
Then he said:
“You’re all looking at the wrong car.”
Nico’s face changed.
Luca heard an engine outside.
The sedan they had abandoned near Ferraro Imports rolled backward by itself.
No driver.
Rachel whispered:
“What the hell?”
Then Luca understood.
Remote start.
The brake line.
Slope.
The vehicle began rolling downhill toward the alley.
Toward Bennett Auto.
Toward the office where Maisie had been sitting thirty seconds earlier.
“Move!”
Everything happened at once.
Nico grabbed Maisie.
Rachel pulled at a tool cabinet.
Luca caught Isabella.
The sedan slammed through the half-open garage bay.
Metal screamed.
Glass shattered.
Then silence.
No explosion.
No fire.
Just wreckage.
Everyone breathing.
Luca looked at Marco.
Marco was gone.
And on the wet concrete where he had been standing lay Daniel Bennett’s watch.
He had left it behind deliberately.
Not surrender.
A message.
Then Rachel’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She stared at it.
A photograph appeared.
A storage unit door.
Number 317.
Below it:
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO REALLY KILLED DANIEL.
Rachel went pale.
Luca looked over her shoulder.
Then another message arrived.
AND DON’T BRING FERRARO.
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Rachel looked at him.
“So obviously you’re coming.”
For the first time that morning, he smiled.
May you like
“Now you’re learning.”
---
