Chapter 5 - THE ROSARY OF THE BLACK CROWN
We drove through the night, abandoning the SUV in a long-term parking lot at the airport and switching to a stolen sedan I kept stashed for emergencies.
The rules of my life had entirely changed. I was no longer the hunter. I was the hunted. And the man hunting me knew every tactic I had ever taught him.
Lucia sat in the passenger seat, staring out at the passing highway lights.
“If my mother went to your brother for protection,” she asked quietly, “why did he take me from her? Why was I left in an orphanage?”
“Because Lorenzo doesn’t protect anyone for free,” I replied, my voice hard. “He deals in leverage. Twenty years ago, he was planning his coup. He knew that if he possessed my child, he possessed my absolute vulnerability.”
I glanced at her. The crescent mark near her temple was illuminated by the dashboard lights.
“Isabella must have realized she traded one danger for a worse one. She left you in Boston to hide you from Lorenzo.”
But that didn't explain Matteo. Why would Isabella leave her second child—my son—in a position where I would eventually find him, only for him to be corrupted by my brother?
Answer one, open two.
We needed to find Lorenzo. And I knew exactly how he operated.
“Check the glovebox,” I told Lucia.
She opened it. Inside was a burner phone and a loaded Glock 19.
“Turn the phone on. Access the contacts. There’s only one number.”
She pressed the power button. The screen illuminated. She dialed the number and put it on speaker.
The line rang twice before a deep, heavily accented voice answered.
“I was wondering when you would call from the grave, little brother.”
Lorenzo’s voice sent a primal chill down my spine. It had been ten years since I last heard it.
“You look good for a dead man, Lorenzo,” I said, accelerating onto the interstate.
“And you look remarkably foolish for a boss who just lost his entire syndicate in a single night,” Lorenzo chuckled. “Matteo was very efficient. Your capos are currently pledging allegiance to the Black Crown. Your accounts are frozen. You are a king without a kingdom, Santiago.”
“I don’t care about the kingdom,” I said. “I want Isabella.”
Lorenzo laughed, a dry, rasping sound.
“You always were a romantic. Bring the girl to Pier 44 at the old shipping yards. You have one hour. If you don’t show, or if you bring any of your remaining loyalists... I will mail you Isabella’s fingers one by one.”
The line went dead.
Lucia stared at the phone. “We’re walking into a trap.”
“It’s not a trap if you know it’s coming,” I said.
We arrived at Pier 44 forty-five minutes later. The shipping yard was a desolate expanse of rusted shipping containers and towering cranes, battered by the cold ocean wind.
I parked the car in the shadows. I handed Lucia the Glock.
“Take the safety off,” I instructed. “Keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you’re ready to fire.”
She took the weapon. Her hands were surprisingly steady.
“I’ve never shot anyone,” she whispered.
“Let’s hope you don’t have to start tonight.”
We walked down the main thoroughfare of the pier. The fog was thick, obscuring the tops of the cranes.
At the end of the pier, surrounded by a dozen heavily armed Black Crown mercenaries, stood Lorenzo.
He looked older, leaning on a silver-tipped cane, but his eyes possessed the same ruthless ambition I remembered. Standing beside him was Matteo, my traitorous son, his face impassive.
And suspended twenty feet in the air, dangling from a massive crane, was a rusted iron shipping container.
“Right on time,” Lorenzo smiled, spreading his arms. “A family reunion.”
“Lower the container,” I demanded.
Lorenzo nodded to a mercenary operating the crane controls.
The heavy steel box shrieked as the winch lowered it onto the concrete pier with a massive THUD.
My heart pounded in my throat. Twenty years. I was finally going to see her again.
Matteo stepped forward and unlatched the heavy iron doors.
He pulled them wide open.
I raised my gun, prepared for an ambush.
But there were no assassins inside.
The container was completely empty.
Except for a heavy iron cage welded to the floor in the center.
And lying inside the cage, perfectly folded, was a deep crimson velvet coat.
I recognized the coat instantly. I had bought it for Isabella in Paris the year we were married.
“Where is she, Lorenzo?!” I roared, stepping forward.
Lorenzo’s smile faded into a look of genuine confusion.
He turned to Matteo. “What is this? I told you to bring the woman from the Boston safehouse.”
Matteo didn’t look at Lorenzo.
May you like
He looked at me.
And then, with terrifying speed, Matteo drew his weapon and shot the mercenary operating the crane directly in the chest.
