Chapter 4 - The Empty Sanctuary
The Florida heat hit them like a physical blow as they stepped off the jet at Opa-locka Executive Airport. A black SUV, arranged by Sarah mid-flight, was waiting on the tarmac.
Dominic drove. He pushed the heavy vehicle to its limits, tearing down I-95 in the dead of night. Robert sat in the passenger seat, gripping the handle, while Sarah monitored police scanners in the back.
They reached Coral Gables at 3:00 AM.
The address belonged to a sprawling, Spanish-style estate hidden behind high stucco walls and dense banyan trees. The iron gates were wide open. The lock had been burned through with a blowtorch.
Dominic killed the headlights. He drew his weapon and slipped out of the SUV into the humid darkness. Robert followed, a heavy revolver in his hand. Sarah stayed by the car, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was an assistant, not a soldier, but she refused to look away.
They moved silently across the manicured lawn. The front door of the estate was ajar, hanging off a splintered hinge.
Dominic pushed it open with his foot.
The inside of the house was a war zone. Priceless vases were shattered, bullet holes peppered the expensive plaster walls, and blood stained the imported marble floors. But the house was entirely silent.
Dominic swept the ground floor, his gun raised. “Dad?” he called out, his voice echoing in the empty halls.
No answer.
Sarah stepped carefully into the foyer, avoiding the glass. She walked into what looked like a home office. It was ransacked. Books were torn from the shelves, filing cabinets were overturned.
“They took them,” Robert said, his voice breaking as he looked at the blood on the floor. “Camille’s men got here first.”
Dominic stood in the center of the room, looking utterly defeated. He had finally found his family, only to lose them in the same night.
But Sarah wasn't looking at the destruction. She was looking at the details.
She walked over to a heavy oak desk that had been flipped on its side. Beneath it lay a shattered digital clock.
“Dominic,” Sarah called out.
He rushed into the room. “What did you find?”
“Look at the blood trail,” Sarah pointed to the floor. The crimson smears didn't lead toward the front door. They led toward the back patio, out toward the deep water canal that ran behind the estate.
“And look at this,” she pointed to a corkboard on the wall. It had been stripped of papers, but one item remained pinned to the center: a faded photograph of a fishing boat named The Iron Ghost.
Robert squinted at it. “That’s Antonio’s old boat from the Boston harbor. He sunk it twenty years ago.”
“No,” Sarah said, her analytical mind working at lightning speed. “He didn't sink it. He relocated it. Look at the pin holding the photo.”
Dominic stepped closer. The pushpin holding the photo wasn't standard. It was a customized nautical pin, shaped like a compass rose. The red needle of the compass was deliberately pointed toward the bottom right corner of the board, where a set of coordinates had been scratched into the cork with a knife.
“25.7617° N, 80.1918° W,” Dominic read aloud.
Sarah typed the coordinates into her phone. “That’s not here. That’s a private slip at an abandoned shipyard near the Port of Miami.”
Dominic’s eyes flared with renewed hope. “My father didn’t get captured. He fought his way out. He took Isabella and fell back to a secondary location.”
Robert checked his revolver. “Camille’s men won’t be far behind him. If we figured this out, they will too.”
“Then we need to get there first,” Dominic said, sprinting back toward the SUV.
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Sarah followed, her mind racing. Antonio Caruso was a legend of the underworld, a man who had survived a war and faked his own death. He wouldn't just run. He was luring the Morettis into a trap.
And they were walking right into the middle of it.
