Chapter 6 - Blood CipherThe firefight lasted less than four minutes.
It felt like an hour.
Meridian’s men were not street soldiers.
They moved in pairs, used suppressive fire intelligently, and never shouted unless communicating positions.
Lorenzo recognized the style.
Military.
Dominic recognized it too.
“Three on the east side!” he shouted.
Marco fired beneath the SUV.
“One down!”
Elena and Lucas crawled through the cottage toward the rear door while bullets punched holes through the walls.
Lorenzo saw them moving.
“Elena!”
“I’m getting Lucas out!”
“Stay inside!”
She looked at him through the broken window.
“Your plans have a terrible survival rate!”
Even in the middle of gunfire, Marco laughed.
Lorenzo glared at him.
“Not funny.”
“A little funny.”
A grenade landed near the porch.
Dominic kicked it into a snowbank.
The explosion shook the cottage.
“Move!” he shouted.
They retreated through the rear tree line.
Dominic had hidden an SUV beneath camouflage netting half a mile away.
By the time Meridian’s remaining shooters realized their targets were running rather than regrouping, Lorenzo’s people had reached the vehicle.
Elena climbed into the back with Lucas.
Dominic took the driver’s seat.
Lorenzo immediately opened the passenger door.
“I’m driving.”
“It’s my car.”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t know the roads.”
“I know how to drive.”
Dominic stared at him.
Elena shouted, “Can you two have your territorial male crisis after people stop shooting?”
A bullet shattered the rear window.
Dominic accelerated.
Lorenzo slammed the door.
“Drive.”
They escaped north.
For the next hour nobody spoke.
Lucas slept with his head against Elena’s shoulder.
Marco followed in the second vehicle with the surviving guards.
Lorenzo kept looking at Elena.
Every few minutes.
As if checking whether she might disappear again.
Finally she noticed.
“You’re staring.”
“I spent twenty-two days thinking you were dead.”
“So naturally you glare at me.”
“I don’t glare.”
Dominic laughed from the driver’s seat.
“You glare.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“Say another word and I’ll shoot you through the seat.”
“You’re in Canada. There are laws.”
“I’m willing to learn about them afterward.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“This is going to be unbearable.”
They reached an abandoned industrial laboratory outside Ottawa just before dawn.
Dominic had converted it into a safe house.
The irony was not lost on Elena.
Her father had chosen a chemistry laboratory.
Inside were beds, food, weapons, encrypted computers, medical equipment, and shelves containing chemical reference books.
Lorenzo examined the facility.
“You’ve been preparing.”
“For twenty years.”
“For what?”
Dominic looked at him.
“You.”
Lorenzo’s hand moved toward his gun.
Elena stepped between them again.
“Can we please get through one conversation without somebody reaching for a weapon?”
“No,” both men said simultaneously.
Lucas began laughing.
Everyone looked at him.
“What?”
The boy grinned.
“You sound the same.”
Dominic looked offended.
Lorenzo looked more offended.
Elena kissed Lucas on the forehead.
“Go find something to eat.”
When he left, she faced both men.
“Now talk.”
Dominic activated a projector.
A network appeared on the wall.
Companies.
Banks.
Hospitals.
Shipping firms.
Security contractors.
Political organizations.
At the center was one word.
MERIDIAN.
“They’ve existed under different names for decades,” Dominic said. “They finance conflict, then buy whatever survives. Criminal families are useful because we create unofficial infrastructure. Ports. Cash networks. Corrupt officials. Smuggling routes.”
Lorenzo studied the network.
“Who runs it?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Someone always runs it.”
“We know nine directors. We don’t know the chair.”
Dominic changed the image.
Dr. Nathaniel Thorne appeared.
“Thorne is one of their operational coordinators.”
Lorenzo’s eyes hardened.
“He poisoned my mother.”
“He supplied the method. Salvatore and Rossi executed the plan.”
“Where is he?”
“Toronto.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“That would be stupid.”
Lorenzo turned slowly.
“Be very careful.”
“Thorne is worth more alive.”
“To you.”
“To Elena.”
She frowned.
“What does he know about me?”
Dominic hesitated.
That hesitation terrified her.
“Tell me.”
“Your childhood memories contain the second cipher.”
“You said that already.”
“The cipher unlocks a file Isabella and I created.”
“What file?”
Dominic met her eyes.
“Meridian’s original membership list.”
Lorenzo understood immediately.
“That could destroy them.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“Encrypted across multiple offshore servers. Without Elena’s memory sequence, it cannot be assembled.”
Elena shook her head.
“I don’t remember any sequence.”
“You do.”
Dominic walked to a whiteboard and wrote:
H — He — Li — Be — B — C — N — O — F — Ne.
“The first ten elements.”
“My father taught me those when I was six.”
“What came after neon?”
“Sodium.”
“And after that?”
“Magnesium.”
Dominic nodded.
“What did I make you associate sodium with?”
Elena frowned.
“Salt.”
“What color?”
“Blue.”
“Number?”
“Eleven.”
“Street?”
She froze.
A memory surfaced.
A tiny apartment.
Her father sitting on the floor.
Colored cards spread around her.
Blue salt.
Eleven.
Harbor Street.
Elena whispered, “Eleven Harbor.”
Dominic wrote it down.
“What happened there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
She closed her eyes.
Her head began aching.
There had been shouting.
Her mother crying.
A man in a suit.
A young Isabella Moretti.
And another man.
Elena opened her eyes.
“Antonio.”
Lorenzo stiffened.
“My father?”
“He was there.”
Dominic looked grim.
“Now we’re getting close.”
Elena backed away.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No. I don’t want this.”
Dominic approached.
“You have to remember.”
“You don’t get to order me.”
“Meridian is trying to kill you.”
“And whose fault is that?”
His face fell.
Elena continued.
“You hid this inside me when I was a child. You turned my memories into a safe deposit box.”
“I thought it was the only place they could never search.”
“You made me the key to a war I didn’t know existed.”
Dominic whispered, “I’m sorry.”
She laughed.
“That’s not enough.”
Lorenzo surprised both of them.
“Then stop.”
Dominic turned.
“What?”
“She said stop.”
“We need the sequence.”
“We need her alive and sane more.”
Dominic stared.
“You think protecting her makes you better than me?”
“No.”
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“I think listening to her makes me better than you.”
Elena looked at him.
Something shifted inside her.
Dominic saw it.
“You love him.”
Silence.
Elena’s throat tightened.
“That’s irrelevant.”
“No. It may be the most dangerous thing in this room.”
Lorenzo’s voice dropped.
“Watch yourself.”
Dominic ignored him.
“You know what Morettis do to people they love?”
“Enough,” Elena said.
“They destroy them.”
“I said enough.”
“My wife loved Antonio Moretti once.”
The room became still.
Lorenzo frowned.
“What?”
Dominic looked at him.
“Before she married me, Maria Caruso loved your father.”
Elena felt as though the floor disappeared.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Dominic returned to the projector and displayed an old photograph.
Maria.
Antonio.
Isabella.
Dominic.
All young.
All smiling.
“They grew up together. Isabella knew Maria loved Antonio. She also knew Antonio could never marry a Caruso without starting a war.”
Lorenzo looked at the photograph.
“My father never mentioned her.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because he betrayed her.”
Dominic’s voice became hard.
“Antonio married Isabella to consolidate power. Then he used Maria to access Caruso financial routes. When my family discovered it, war began.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“That’s what your family told you.”
Lorenzo stepped forward.
Dominic continued.
“The night I was arrested, Antonio came to my house. He offered me a deal. Give him the Meridian files and he would protect Maria and Elena.”
Elena remembered.
A hallway.
Her father shouting.
Antonio Moretti holding a briefcase.
Young Elena hiding beneath a table.
“What did you do?”
“I refused.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew Antonio was already compromised.”
“By Meridian?”
“Yes.”
Lorenzo stared at him.
“My father worked for them?”
“At first.”
“Then?”
“He tried to leave.”
Dominic changed the projection.
A death report.
Antonio Moretti.
Lorenzo’s father had been assassinated eighteen years earlier.
Three gunshots outside a restaurant.
The killer had never been found.
“Meridian killed him,” Dominic said.
Lorenzo’s face lost color.
“You know that?”
“I know because I was supposed to kill him.”
“What?”
“Meridian offered me freedom in exchange for Antonio’s death.”
Dominic paused.
“I refused.”
“Then who killed him?”
“I don’t know.”
Lorenzo’s hand closed into a fist.
For eighteen years, he had believed the Carusos murdered his father.
His entire rise to power had been built partly upon vengeance against remnants of their organization.
“What else did my family lie about?”
Dominic looked toward the projector.
“That is what Isabella wanted you to discover.”
A sound came from the doorway.
Lucas.
He stood there holding the flash drive.
Elena’s face changed.
“Lucas, where did you get that?”
“Your bag.”
“You shouldn’t touch it.”
“I wasn’t.”
He held it up.
“It was blinking.”
The room went silent.
Dominic crossed the room quickly.
“Give it to me.”
Lucas handed it over.
A tiny indicator light flashed three times.
Dominic connected the drive to an isolated computer.
Text appeared.
INCOMING DECRYPTION REQUEST.
Then coordinates.
Lorenzo frowned.
“What is that?”
Dominic stared at the screen.
“Someone is trying to open Isabella’s files remotely.”
“Can you trace it?”
“Already doing it.”
Numbers scrolled.
Then stopped.
Location:
ST. JUDE’S PRIVATE HOSPICE, CHICAGO.
Elena whispered, “Thorne.”
“No,” Dominic said.
“Thorne is in Toronto.”
Lorenzo understood.
“Someone else.”
The screen changed again.
A message appeared.
LORENZO.
YOUR MOTHER LEFT SOMETHING FOR YOU.
COME HOME.
ALONE.
Below it was a photograph.
Taken minutes earlier.
Inside Isabella Moretti’s old hospice room.
A woman sat on the bed.
Bound.
Bruised.
Alive.
Lorenzo stared at her.
Marco entered behind them and stopped.
“Oh God.”
Elena looked between them.
“Who is she?”
May you like
Lorenzo could barely answer.
“My sister.”
Related Stories
