Chapter 2 - THE GIRL HER FATHER TOLD HIM TO KILL
The dead line remained open for half a second.
Then Dominic Costello reached across the glass table and disconnected the call.
Nobody in the library moved.
Penelope still had both arms crossed desperately over the torn front of the wedding dress.
Her father’s last words seemed to hang in the room.
Finish the job.
Not rescue her.
Not negotiate.
Not even pretend.
Finish the job.
Penelope lowered her head.
“I told you.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
“That they don’t want me.”
Something in the way she said it bothered him more than Richard Gallagher’s cruelty.
There was no anger.
No surprise.
She sounded like a woman confirming the weather.
Dominic turned toward the men near the library doors.
“Out.”
His underboss, Vincent Marino, hesitated.
“Dom—”
“Everybody.”
The men left.
Dominic removed his suit jacket.
Penelope flinched when he approached.
He stopped immediately.
Then placed the jacket on the sofa beside her.
“For the dress.”
She stared at it.
“You kidnapped me.”
“Yes.”
“You had men shooting outside a church.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“And now you’re worried that I’m embarrassed?”
“I can be responsible for one terrible thing without adding another.”
That silenced her.
Penelope pulled the jacket around herself.
It swallowed her shoulders.
Dominic crossed to the intercom.
“Send Rosa up.”
“Who’s Rosa?”
“My housekeeper.”
“I don’t need—”
“You need clothing that doesn’t hurt you.”
Her face reddened.
He noticed the broken corset digging into the scars along her side.
His expression darkened.
“Can you breathe?”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Dominic looked at her for a long moment.
“So did my mother for twenty years.”
Penelope’s eyes lifted.
He did not explain.
Rosa entered carrying a soft gray robe and a folded black dress.
She was in her sixties, silver-haired, unimpressed by almost everyone in Dominic’s world.
She took one look at Penelope.
Then one look at Dominic.
“What did you do?”
Vincent, standing beyond the doorway, suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.
Dominic answered, “We made a mistake.”
Rosa sniffed.
“You usually make expensive mistakes.”
Then she went to Penelope.
Her voice softened.
“Come with me, sweetheart.”
Penelope looked at Dominic.
“Am I a prisoner?”
The question landed heavily.
Dominic could have lied.
Instead he said, “Until I know sending you away won’t get you killed, you stay inside the estate.”
Her mouth twisted.
“So yes.”
“For tonight.”
“That’s still yes.”
He accepted that.
“Rosa’s room is beside the guest wing. No man enters your room without your permission.”
Penelope laughed bitterly.
“How gentlemanly.”
Dominic said nothing.
She stood carefully.
The wedding dress pulled at her ribs.
Then something slipped from beneath the torn lace and struck the floor.
A small silver medal.
Dominic looked down.
His entire body went still.
Penelope bent quickly to pick it up.
He caught her wrist.
Not hard.
But fast.
“Where did you get that?”
Fear flashed across her face.
“Let go.”
Dominic released her instantly.
She grabbed the medal.
It was oval, blackened with age, suspended from a thin chain.
On one side was Saint Christopher.
On the other were three engraved letters.
C.C.
Dominic stared.
“Who gave that to you?”
“My mother.”
“What was her name?”
“Margaret Gallagher.”
He already knew that.
Richard Gallagher’s first wife.
Dead thirteen years.
Officially from an aneurysm.
Dominic had never met her.
Or believed he hadn’t.
“Open it.”
Penelope’s hand closed around the medal.
“No.”
“That belonged to my father.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“Carlo Costello.”
Her face changed.
Dominic pointed at the initials.
“C.C.”
“My mother said they stood for carry courage.”
“They didn’t.”
He extended his hand.
“Please.”
Perhaps it was the word.
Perhaps the way he said it.
Penelope finally placed the medal in his palm.
There was a seam around the edge.
Dominic pressed his thumbnail into it.
The medal opened.
Inside was a tiny photograph folded twice.
Penelope stepped closer despite herself.
Dominic carefully unfolded it.
Margaret Gallagher stood beside a younger Carlo Costello on Pier Nine.
Behind them were dockworkers.
Union banners.
A ship bearing the old Costello freight mark.
Carlo was smiling.
Dominic had almost forgotten what his father looked like when he smiled.
On the back, faded blue ink formed one sentence.
If Richard closes the gate, Dominic must know why.
Penelope read it over his shoulder.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You’ve worn this for how long?”
“Since I was eleven.”
“Your mother gave it to you?”
“The week before she died.”
Dominic folded the photograph slowly.
His father had been murdered twelve years ago.
Shot near a warehouse after leaving a port meeting.
Richard Gallagher had blamed the Montgomery family.
The Costellos had believed him.
Men died because they believed him.
Contracts changed hands.
Territory shifted.
And now Dominic was standing with Richard Gallagher’s hidden daughter holding proof that his father and Margaret had been working together before both of them died.
“What happened after your mother gave you this?”
Penelope looked uneasy.
“She told me never to let Dad see it.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Think.”
“I was eleven.”
“Anything.”
Penelope rubbed the chain between her fingers.
“She kept talking about gates.”
Dominic waited.
“Pier gates?”
“I don’t know. She said people were being locked out of places they had built.”
His mind moved quickly.
Thirteen years earlier Costello crews controlled Pier Nine.
Gallagher controlled inland trucking.
Montgomery controlled real estate around the terminals.
Then Carlo died.
Margaret died.
Within eighteen months Richard Gallagher controlled almost every access road feeding Pier Nine.
That had never seemed connected.
Now it did.
Rosa touched Penelope’s shoulder.
“You need to get out of that dress.”
Penelope nodded.
Before she left, Dominic asked one more question.
“Did your father ever ask about the medal?”
She turned.
“Once.”
“When?”
“The night of the fire.”
His attention sharpened.
Penelope’s hand went unconsciously to the scars beneath his jacket.
“He came to the hospital.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t ask if I was okay.”
Her voice thinned.
“He asked if anything had survived.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“What did you tell him?”
“That everything burned.”
“Was that true?”
Penelope looked at the medal.
“No.”
She walked away.
Vincent entered immediately.
“You recognize the pier?”
“Yes.”
Vincent studied the photograph.
“Carlo never told us he was meeting Margaret Gallagher.”
“Someone knew.”
“Who?”
Dominic looked toward the dark windows.
“Find out.”
Vincent nodded.
“And the girl?”
Dominic looked toward the hallway where Penelope had disappeared.
“Richard doesn’t get her back.”
Vincent’s expression shifted.
“That isn’t your decision.”
“No.”
Dominic folded the photograph.
“But sending her back to a man who just asked me to murder her isn’t happening either.”
An hour later, Rosa returned alone.
“She’s sleeping.”
Dominic nodded.
Rosa remained.
“What?”
“She had something sewn into the hem of that wedding dress.”
Dominic looked up.
“What?”
Rosa placed a small brass key on the desk.
Stamped into the metal were two characters.
P9.
Pier Nine.
Dominic stared.
“Did Penelope put it there?”
Rosa shook her head.
“She says she’s never seen it.”
Dominic remembered Penelope’s story.
Victoria had forced her into the gown.
Victoria had lowered the veil herself.
He closed his hand around the key.
The wrong bride had arrived carrying a key connected to his father’s last secret.
May you like
And somebody had sewn it into her dress before she was kidnapped.
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