Chapter 4 - THE TICKING CLOCK AND THE POCKET WATCH
Vincent took the phone from the trembling chef. He didn't put it to his ear. He pressed the speaker button and set it precisely in the center of the white linen tablecloth.
“Frank,” Vincent said. His voice was terrifyingly calm, devoid of the rage that had consumed him seconds earlier.
“Vincent,” Frank’s rough voice echoed through the empty restaurant. There was a sickening confidence in it. “I see the little waitress made it back to you. I underestimated her right hook.”
“Where are my daughter-in-law and the woman who raised my granddaughter?” Vincent asked.
“They’re safe. Chilly, but safe,” Frank chuckled. I could hear the faint sound of rushing water and foghorns in the background. Pier 42. He wasn't even trying to hide it.
“What do you want, Frank?” Anthony stepped forward, his fists clenched at his sides. “You want the port routes? Take them. Let Elena and Sarah go.”
“I don't want the routes, Anthony. I already have them,” Frank sneered. “What I want is the transition to be clean. Vincent, you’re stepping down. Tonight. You’re going to transfer the deed to the central warehouse district to my holding company, and you’re going to tell the families that I am your chosen successor.”
Vincent stared at the phone. “And if I refuse?”
“Then I start mailing pieces of your daughter-in-law to your front door,” Frank said flatly. “You have exactly one hour to bring the signed transfer deeds to the pier. Come alone. If I see more than one set of headlights, the women die.”
The line went dead.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
“We can’t give him the warehouse district,” Anthony said, his voice tight with panic. “That’s the heart of the legitimate businesses. If he gets that, he controls the unions. He’ll be untouchable.”
“I will give him the entire city to get Elena back,” Vincent said coldly. He turned to Anthony. “Get the deeds from the safe in the office. Now.”
Anthony hesitated, then ran toward the back office.
Vincent looked at me. I was shaking, terrified for my mother—for Sarah. The woman who had sacrificed everything to raise me. She was sick. She needed surgery. The damp, freezing air of the pier would kill her even if Frank didn't.
“I’m going with you,” I said.
Vincent looked at me sharply. “Absolutely not. You are staying here under guard.”
“She’s my mother!” I shot back, my voice echoing in the empty room. “Sarah raised me. She loved me when your family was too busy shooting at each other to notice I was gone. I am not sitting in a restaurant while she dies!”
Vincent stepped closer to me. The sheer physical presence of the man was overwhelming, but I didn't back down. I met his slate-gray eyes with my own.
“You have her fire,” Vincent murmured softly, a strange look of pride crossing his face. “You look exactly like my late wife.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an antique gold pocket watch. He popped it open. The face was cracked, but the hands still moved.
“We have forty-five minutes,” Vincent said. He closed the watch with a snap. “You can come. But you do exactly what I say. Understood?”
I nodded.
Ten minutes later, we were in the back of a black armored SUV, speeding through the dark streets of Philadelphia. Anthony was driving. Vincent sat beside me, utterly silent, his hands resting on a heavy leather briefcase containing the deeds.
“Why did Sarah do it?” I asked quietly, breaking the silence. “Why did she give up her life to raise me?”
Vincent didn't look at me. He stared out the tinted window.
“Maria—Sarah—was a trauma nurse,” Vincent said slowly. “She patched up Elena after Frank ran her car off the road twenty years ago. Elena was bleeding out. She begged Maria to take you and run. She knew Frank would finish the job if he found you.”
“But Elena survived,” I said, my chest tightening. “Why didn't she come back for me?”
“Because Frank told her you were dead,” Anthony answered from the driver’s seat, his voice thick with grief. “He showed Elena the child’s shoe from the wreckage. He broke her, Anna. And Maria stayed hidden because she knew the Caruso name was a death sentence for a little girl.”
I looked down at my hands. The waitressing uniform. The cheap shoes. I had grown up poor, scrubbing floors, worrying about rent. But I had grown up safe.
We pulled onto the desolate access road leading to Pier 42.
The massive, rusted shipping cranes loomed in the dark like iron skeletons. Fog rolled off the Delaware River, thick and freezing.
“Stop here,” Vincent commanded.
Anthony hit the brakes. We were a hundred yards from the main warehouse.
“Dad, you can’t walk in there alone,” Anthony pleaded. “Let me come with you.”
“He said one set of headlights. He said come alone,” Vincent replied, his voice devoid of fear. He picked up the briefcase.
He turned to me.
“Stay in the car,” Vincent ordered. He pulled the heavy pistol from his holster and handed it to Anthony. “If I am not back in twenty minutes, drive away. Do not look back.”
Vincent opened the door and stepped out into the freezing fog.
I watched the most powerful man in the city walk alone toward the rusted warehouse, carrying nothing but a leather briefcase and an eighty-year-old vendetta.
Five minutes passed. The silence was agonizing.
“He’s going to kill him,” I whispered, gripping the edge of my seat.
“My father knows what he’s doing,” Anthony said, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
But as the words left his mouth, a sudden, blinding spotlight flared from the roof of the warehouse, illuminating the SUV.
And then, the sound of automatic gunfire ripped through the night.
The bullets didn't hit the warehouse. They hit our car.
The armored glass cracked and spider-webbed as heavy caliber rounds slammed into the side of the SUV.
“Get down!” Anthony roared, throwing his body over the center console to shield me.
Frank had lied. He wasn't waiting for the deeds. He was eliminating the entire bloodline.
Through the cracked window, I saw two heavily armed men stepping out of the fog, advancing on our crippled vehicle.
Anthony raised the pistol Vincent had given him, but before he could fire, the men suddenly stopped.
A figure emerged from the shadows behind them.
It wasn't Vincent.
It was a woman. Elderly, stooped, wearing a heavy wool coat.
Elena Russo.
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And in her trembling, arthritic hands, she was holding a massive, rusted steel wrench.
Before the armed men could turn around, Elena swung the wrench with a furious, maternal shriek, striking the closest gunman directly in the back of the knee.
