Chapter 6 - THE NIECE
"Who is Sofia?" I asked, my voice echoing slightly in the empty station concourse.
Alessio didn't answer right away. He stared at the handwriting on the back of the child's drawing, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the paper. The formidable, untouchable mafia boss was suddenly trembling.
"Sofia is my niece," he finally whispered, the words sounding like glass shattering in his throat. "My older brother's daughter. When he and his wife passed away three years ago, I became her legal guardian. She is six years old."
I felt the blood rush from my head. A six-year-old child. Marcus had taken a child.
"Marcus took his own niece?" I asked, horrified.
"Marcus has no blood loyalty," Alessio said, his eyes burning with a terrifying, cold fury as he looked up. "He knew that even if he killed me tonight, my will leaves the entire legitimate side of the business in a trust for Sofia. I protected her financially. So he didn't just want me dead. He needed her to sign away her rights when she came of age, or he needed to eliminate her entirely."
"But the note says he has the ledger," I pointed out, my mind racing. "If he already has my father's proof of his embezzlement, why does he need to hold Sofia hostage?"
Alessio examined the drawing again, his brow furrowing. "Because he doesn't have it."
"What?"
"Look at the handwriting," Alessio pointed to the elegant, sharp black ink. "Marcus writes in heavy block letters. He has awful penmanship. This ink, this slant... this is a woman’s handwriting."
I stared at the looping, precise letters. "If Marcus didn't take the ledger... who did?"
"I don't know," Alessio said, pacing the floor, running a hand through his hair. "But whoever wrote this got to locker 1014 before we did. And they took Sofia."
Suddenly, the burner phone in Alessio’s pocket vibrated. The sound was loud as a gunshot in the quiet station.
He pulled it out, staring at the unknown number. He answered it, putting it on speaker.
"Alessio," a woman's voice drifted through the speaker. It was smooth, cultured, and entirely devoid of panic.
Alessio froze. "Elena."
I searched my memory. Elena. Who was Elena?
"I see you found the little gift I left in the locker," the woman said, a smile evident in her tone. "I must say, I was surprised when my men told me you walked out of the Ashworth estate on your own two feet. Marcus is a fool. If you want a man dead, you use a bullet, not a sleeping potion."
"Where is she, Elena?" Alessio’s voice was a low, guttural growl that made the hair on my arms stand up. "If you touch one hair on Sofia's head—"
"Oh, please, Alessio," Elena interrupted with an elegant sigh. "Sofia is perfectly safe. She’s asleep in the guest room. She thinks she's having a sleepover with her favorite aunt."
My breath hitched. Aunt. Elena was the wife of the brother who had passed away. Sofia’s mother was dead... which meant Elena was Marcus's wife.
"Marcus thinks he's running this operation," Elena continued, her voice dripping with disdain. "He thinks he's going to take over the family. But we both know Marcus is an idiot. He’s the muscle. I’m the brain."
"What do you want?" Alessio demanded.
"I have the ledger," Elena said smoothly. "Arthur Bennett was very clever, hiding it here. But I watched his miserable little daughter for years. I knew she’d lead us to it eventually."
I flinched. She had been watching me.
"Bring me the deed to the Moretti shipping ports," Elena said, her voice dropping all pretense of politeness. "Sign them over to me. Not Marcus. Me. You bring the transfer papers to the old shipyard on Pier 9 in exactly one hour. You come alone. If you bring Dante, or if you bring the cops, the little girl disappears forever."
The line went dead.
Alessio slowly lowered the phone. He looked at me, his eyes entirely hollow. The shipping ports were the crown jewel of the empire. Giving them up meant giving up everything.
"I have to go," Alessio said quietly. "I have to save her."
He turned to walk away, fully prepared to walk into a death trap.
"Wait," I grabbed his arm, my heart pounding as a memory suddenly sparked in my brain. "She's lying."
Alessio stopped. "What?"
"She doesn't have the ledger," I said, my voice gaining strength. I looked into locker 1014. "My dad used this locker to hold his work boots so he wouldn't track grease into the house. He never kept papers in here. It's too humid. The paper would rot."
"But the key—"
"The key opens this locker, yes," I interrupted, my eyes wide. "But look at the back of the locker."
Alessio leaned in. Scratched into the metal paint at the very back of the small box was a tiny string of numbers.
34-12-88
"Coordinates?" Alessio asked.
"A combination," I breathed, tears pricking my eyes. "To the deep freezer at the diner where I work. He bought me that freezer when I started my first job. He told me it was a graduation gift."
Elena hadn't found the ledger. She only found the child's drawing that Arthur had kept in his locker as a memory.
"She’s bluffing to get the ports," I said, looking up at Alessio. "If we get to the diner and get the ledger, we have the leverage. We can save Sofia."
Alessio stared at me, a profound respect blooming in his golden eyes. He reached out and gently touched my cheek, his thumb brushing away a stray tear.
"Then we go to the diner," he said.
As we turned to run toward the exit, a sleek black town car pulled up to the curb outside the glass doors of the station. The back window rolled down.
May you like
Sitting in the backseat, holding a suppressed pistol aimed directly at my chest, was Dr. Evans—the physician who had pronounced Alessio dead just hours ago.
"Get in," the doctor smiled.
