Chapter 3 - THE MAN LUCA’S FATHER NEVER BURIED
They made it out through the eastern loading door forty-three seconds before the first floor exploded.
Fire rolled through Pier Nine in a wave.
Glass burst outward.
Matteo tackled Maria behind a concrete barrier.
Luca covered Daniel with his own body.
The boy screamed.
Then the sound became sobbing.
Not pain.
Memory.
Eight months of locked rooms.
Threats.
Waiting.
And now fire.
Again.
Luca held him until the child stopped shaking.
Fire engines arrived twelve minutes later.
Too late to save most of the building.
Not too late to save Luca’s nephew.
That was all anyone cared about.
Daniel sat wrapped in a blanket inside an ambulance.
A paramedic examined his arms.
No broken bones.
No recent serious injuries.
Malnourished.
Mild dehydration.
Old bruising along one forearm.
Nothing that required immediate surgery.
Luca stood beside the ambulance, hands covered in soot.
Maria sat opposite Daniel while a medic examined her shoulder.
“Probably a bad contusion,” he said.
“See?” Maria told Luca. “Fine.”
The medic looked at him.
“She needs X-rays.”
Luca raised an eyebrow.
Maria sighed.
“Almost fine.”
Daniel held her good hand.
He had not let go since they escaped.
Luca crouched in front of him.
“Daniel.”
The boy stared at the blanket.
“You said something inside.”
No response.
Luca softened his voice.
“You said Evan didn’t take you.”
Daniel’s fingers tightened around Maria’s.
She looked at Luca.
Not yet.
He understood.
Eight months.
He had waited eight months.
He could wait an hour.
A black sedan stopped near the emergency crews.
A woman got out before it fully stopped.
“Elena!”
Luca’s older sister ran toward the ambulance.
Daniel looked up.
“Mom?”
Elena Ferraro had aged eight years in eight months.
Her hair was shorter.
Her face thinner.
She had left Brooklyn four months earlier because every room in the family home reminded her of the son nobody could find.
Now she ran across wet pavement with both hands over her mouth.
Daniel stood.
Then collapsed into her.
Elena screamed his name.
Not loudly.
Brokenly.
She sank onto the ambulance step with him in her arms.
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel clung to her.
“Mom.”
“I’m sorry, baby.”
“You came.”
“I’m here.”
Maria turned away.
Luca didn’t.
He watched his sister hold the child he had failed to bring home for eight months.
Something old and poisonous inside him shifted.
He had blamed himself every day.
What road he should have checked.
Which rival he should have questioned harder.
Which man he should have threatened.
Now he understood the search had been sabotaged from inside.
Someone had wanted the Ferraros looking everywhere except Pier Nine.
And Evan had known.
Maybe from the beginning.
Back at the townhouse, Evan Mercer sat alone in the old wine cellar.
His hands were not tied.
They did not need to be.
Two armed guards stood outside.
The room had one steel door.
No windows.
Evan sat in an upholstered chair as if waiting for a late business meeting.
When Luca entered at 11:34 a.m., Evan looked up.
“Daniel?”
“Alive.”
A flicker.
Relief?
Luca couldn’t tell.
“You sound disappointed.”
“I’m not.”
“Then explain Pier Nine.”
Evan leaned back.
“You won’t believe me.”
“That depends.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Luca closed the door.
Now only the two of them.
“You had his hat.”
“Yes.”
“You had the key.”
“Yes.”
“You had messages about the pier.”
“Yes.”
“Then give me one reason I shouldn’t believe you helped take him.”
Evan looked at the floor.
For the first time since Luca had known him, he seemed tired.
Not curated.
Not elegant.
Tired.
“Because I was trying to get him out.”
Luca stared.
“Try again.”
“I found out three weeks ago.”
“About Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Your father.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“My father has been dead eleven years.”
“His records aren’t.”
“What records?”
Evan looked up.
“The Mercer Foundation bought a private archive from a retired political fixer in Albany last year.”
Luca frowned.
“My father didn’t work in Albany.”
“No. But Senator Harwood did.”
That name Luca knew.
A state senator in the early 2000s.
Close to Antonio Ferraro.
Officially anti-crime.
Unofficially attended two Ferraro weddings and one funeral.
Evan continued.
“Harwood kept leverage on everybody. Judges. Police. Contractors. Your father.”
“What did you find?”
“A reference to Pier Nine.”
“What reference?”
“Not a warehouse.”
Evan swallowed.
“A contingency site.”
Luca said nothing.
“Your father built it as a place to hide people who knew too much but couldn’t be killed.”
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
Luca almost laughed.
“My father didn’t keep witnesses alive.”
“Some witnesses were worth more alive.”
Evan leaned forward.
“Your father had a system. Fake deaths. New names. Men moved through Pier Nine before being relocated.”
“And Silvio?”
Evan’s expression changed.
“He ran it.”
Luca remembered Daniel’s whisper.
Silvio.
“Why would Silvio take my nephew?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I know he took Daniel because Daniel told me.”
Luca stepped forward.
“You spoke to him?”
“Twice.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“You were inside Pier Nine.”
“Yes.”
Luca hit him.
One punch.
Clean.
Evan’s head snapped sideways.
Blood appeared at his lip.
He did not fight back.
“You knew he was alive for a week.”
“I needed time.”
“You needed time?”
“If I told you without proof, you would have hit Pier Nine with twenty men.”
“Yes.”
“And Silvio would have killed Daniel before you reached the stairs.”
Luca’s breathing turned slow.
Controlled.
Dangerous.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know exactly what you do when family is threatened.”
Evan wiped blood from his mouth.
“That’s why Silvio chose the boy.”
Luca stopped.
“Explain.”
“Daniel wasn’t the target.”
“What was?”
“You.”
Silence.
Evan continued.
“Silvio wanted you unstable.”
“For what?”
“To make you repeat your father’s mistakes.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“What mistakes?”
Evan gave a humorless laugh.
“You really never wondered why your father died so suddenly?”
“He had a heart attack.”
“No.”
Luca froze.
Evan stared at him.
“Antonio Ferraro was poisoned.”
Luca’s face went completely still.
“My father died at home.”
“Yes.”
“Doctor confirmed cardiac failure.”
“Yes.”
“Autopsy?”
“Never performed.”
Luca knew that.
His mother had refused.
The family physician signed the certificate.
Antonio had been fifty-seven.
Heavy smoker.
High blood pressure.
Nobody questioned it.
Until now.
“Who poisoned him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why bring it up?”
“Because Silvio disappeared the next morning.”
Luca stepped back.
His father dies.
Silvio vanishes.
Pier Nine goes dark.
Fifteen years of secrets.
“What does Daniel know?”
“I don’t know.”
“He was held eight months.”
“He heard things.”
“And that’s why you stole the key?”
Evan nodded.
“I was going back tonight.”
“Why not tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know who around you belonged to Silvio.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Evan looked toward the ceiling.
“Carlo attacked me because he saw me in your office.”
“Carlo thought you were stealing.”
“He was right.”
“The phone?”
“Burner I used to contact someone at Pier Nine.”
“Who?”
“A man named Gino.”
Luca had just seen Gino inside the warehouse.
“Why?”
“He wanted money.”
“For Daniel?”
“For information.”
“And the hat?”
Evan closed his eyes.
“I took it from the warehouse.”
“Why?”
“Proof.”
“Then why keep it in your trunk instead of showing me?”
“Because two nights ago, Gino told me there was a second key.”
Luca frowned.
“Second key to what?”
“Your father’s private room beneath Pier Nine.”
Luca had seen no lower level.
The fire may have destroyed it.
Or hidden it.
“What was inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Silvio wanted it?”
“Yes.”
“And Daniel?”
Evan shook his head.
“No. Daniel knows where it is.”
Luca stared.
That changed everything.
A knock at the door.
Matteo entered.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Hospital called.”
Luca’s blood chilled.
“Daniel?”
“No.”
“Maria?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Matteo looked toward Evan.
“Gino Pagani.”
The man they pulled from Pier Nine had been taken to a guarded emergency room with smoke inhalation.
“He’s dead.”
Luca frowned.
“From the fire?”
Matteo shook his head.
“Somebody got into his room.”
“How?”
“Hospital scrubs.”
“What happened?”
“Injection.”
Evan closed his eyes.
“Silvio.”
Matteo looked at him.
“You know?”
“He cleans up loose ends.”
Luca turned toward the door.
“Double Daniel’s security.”
“Already done.”
“My sister too.”
“Yes.”
“And Maria.”
Matteo hesitated.
“What?”
“She refused hospital admission.”
Of course she did.
“Where is she?”
“Kitchen.”
Luca looked at the ceiling.
“Why?”
“She says Sunday sauce doesn’t make itself.”
Evan actually laughed.
Luca looked at him.
Then the laugh died.
Luca headed upstairs.
Halfway to the kitchen, he heard Daniel’s voice.
“I know where the little door is.”
Luca stopped.
Daniel sat at the kitchen table with Maria and Elena.
A bowl of soup in front of him.
No one had noticed Luca in the doorway.
Elena asked softly, “What little door?”
Daniel looked at his mother.
“The one under the warehouse.”
Maria’s eyes sharpened.
“What was there?”
Daniel whispered:
“Grandpa’s room.”
Luca entered.
Daniel looked up.
The boy’s expression changed instantly.
“Uncle Luca.”
Luca sat beside him.
“What room?”
Daniel looked at Elena.
She nodded.
“Tell him.”
Daniel pushed the soup away.
“When the bad man first took me, he said he needed me to find something.”
“What?”
“A box.”
“What kind?”
“Black.”
“Why you?”
Daniel frowned.
“Because Grandpa showed me.”
Luca stopped breathing.
Antonio Ferraro died when Daniel was a baby.
“That’s impossible.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Not that grandpa.”
Elena went pale.
Luca looked at his sister.
“What?”
Daniel pointed toward the old framed photographs in the hall.
“The other grandpa.”
Their mother’s father.
Miguel Santos.
Luca stared.
Maria dropped her spoon.
It clattered against the table.
Everyone turned toward her.
Maria’s face had gone white.
“Maria?”
She looked at Daniel.
Then at Luca.
And whispered:
“Oh, dear God.”
Luca stood.
“What?”
Maria pressed one hand to her mouth.
“My husband.”
Silence.
Maria Santos had been widowed for twenty-four years.
Her husband, Rafael, had supposedly died in a construction accident.
Luca remembered him only vaguely.
A quiet man.
Always repairing things.
Loved baseball.
May you like
Maria looked at Luca with tears filling her eyes.
“Rafael worked at Pier Nine.”
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