Chapter 7 - Midnight at the Shipyard“No.”
Dominic said it before the video ended.
Chloe looked at him.
“No.”
“You’ve made your position clear.”
“You’re not going.”
“Rosa was shot protecting me.”
“And if you walk into Victor Vale’s hands, everything she did becomes pointless.”
“He wants the archive.”
“He wants you.”
“Then we give him what he thinks he wants.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you suggesting?”
Leo stood near the burned wine cellar entrance, still watching the video frame by frame.
Chloe looked toward him.
“He said Dominic can’t be within one mile.”
Leo understood first.
“He didn’t say anything about me.”
Dominic glared.
“No.”
Leo shrugged.
“Your vocabulary is becoming limited.”
“I am not sending Chloe into a shipyard with you.”
“I’ve kept you alive for eighteen years.”
“That is different.”
Leo looked at Chloe.
“Apparently you’re more fragile.”
“I’m starting to get offended,” she said.
Dominic ignored both of them.
“We find Victor before midnight.”
“How?” Chloe asked.
“He gave us a location.”
“A location he controls.”
“We have people.”
“And he has someone inside your organization.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
She was right.
Again.
He hated it.
Chloe could see that.
“We do it quietly,” she said. “Small team. Nobody inside your organization knows.”
Dominic stared at her.
“Who do you trust?”
“Leo.”
Leo raised a hand.
“Touched.”
“Rosa.”
“Currently kidnapped.”
“Helpful,” Dominic muttered.
Chloe continued.
“Me.”
Dominic’s expression softened for half a second.
Then hardened.
“And Gabriel?”
“No.”
Leo considered.
“He hates Victor.”
“He stole Isabella’s ledger.”
“Which suggests he intends to use it against Victor.”
“Or sell it.”
Chloe thought about Gabriel hanging from the helicopter rope.
He could have taken her.
He had not.
He had risked himself attacking Russo when Rosa was held hostage.
He had also broken into Dominic’s home with armed men.
Family, Chloe was learning, was complicated.
“What if Gabriel’s already heading to Victor?” she asked.
Leo nodded.
“Likely.”
Dominic looked at the time.
9:42 p.m.
Two hours.
They left the destroyed restaurant.
Dominic took Chloe to a safe apartment above an old law office in Back Bay.
No staff.
No guards.
Just Dominic, Leo, and Chloe.
Leo spread blueprints of the shipyard across a dining table.
Three warehouses.
Two docks.
A crane.
Abandoned maintenance tunnels below the eastern warehouse.
Victor had chosen well.
Open sightlines.
Few exits.
Dominic studied the map.
“He’ll position shooters here and here.”
Leo nodded.
“Maybe a third on the crane.”
Chloe looked at the water.
“Boat?”
“Probably.”
“What if we approach underwater?”
Both men looked at her.
“What?”
Dominic slowly said, “Do you have extensive diving experience you forgot to mention?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
“I was brainstorming.”
“Please brainstorm things that do not involve drowning.”
Leo traced the maintenance tunnel.
“This is the best route.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Old storm drain. Entrance half a mile northeast.”
“Inside his one-mile perimeter.”
“He won’t detect underground movement if we go dark.”
Chloe tapped the main road.
“I arrive visibly.”
Dominic’s face closed.
“Yes,” Leo said.
“No,” Dominic said.
Chloe ignored him.
“Victor watches me enter. His attention stays on me. Leo uses the tunnel.”
“And me?” Dominic asked.
“You stay outside the one-mile perimeter.”
“No.”
“Victor specifically threatened Rosa if you come closer.”
“I am not waiting in a car while you walk toward him.”
Chloe looked at him.
“You said control and protection were the same.”
“I said no such thing.”
“You act like they are.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“This is not a philosophical disagreement. Victor killed your father. He killed your mother.”
“My biological mother.”
“And may have killed Elaine.”
“Exactly. Which is why I’m going.”
Something flashed in his eyes.
Fear.
Pure and immediate.
“You do not understand what men like Victor do.”
Chloe stared at him.
“I watched my mother die for six weeks.”
His anger stopped.
“I watched cancer turn the strongest person I knew into someone who couldn’t lift a glass of water. I sat in hallways while doctors told me there was nothing else they could do. I learned what helpless feels like.”
Her voice shook.
“I will not sit in another room while someone I love is in danger because everybody thinks I can’t handle knowing how ugly things are.”
Dominic’s expression changed at one word.
Love.
Someone I love.
Rosa.
Maybe more.
Neither of them examined it.
Leo quietly stepped away from the table.
Dominic lowered his voice.
“If something happens to you…”
“Then make sure it doesn’t.”
“That is not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
He stared at her.
She stepped closer.
“I trust you.”
The words stopped him.
Dominic Moretti seemed capable of facing bullets, betrayal, police, rival families, and decades of violence.
Trust frightened him.
Chloe saw it clearly.
Finally he said, “You wear a transmitter.”
“Yes.”
“Tracking chip.”
“Yes.”
“Vest.”
“Yes.”
“If Victor touches you—”
“I’ll hit him with a coffee pot.”
Dominic almost laughed.
“There probably won’t be one.”
“I’ll improvise.”
At 11:51 p.m., Chloe Bennett walked alone into the South Boston shipyard.
Wind came off the harbor hard enough to pull at her coat.
A single floodlight illuminated the central warehouse.
No visible guards.
That meant there were many.
Chloe wore a wire beneath her sweater and a ceramic tracker inside her boot.
Dominic sat in an unmarked van 1.03 miles away.
He had measured twice.
Leo was underground.
Chloe walked.
Every step sounded too loud.
The warehouse door stood open.
Inside, Rosa sat in a chair beneath a hanging light.
Alive.
Victor Vale stood beside her.
He looked nothing like a monster.
That was the problem.
He wore a charcoal coat, leather gloves, and silver-framed glasses.
Early sixties.
Elegant.
Someone’s grandfather.
Someone’s donor at a hospital gala.
Someone who looked as though he complained politely when soup arrived cold.
“Chloe.”
His voice matched the recording.
She stopped twenty feet away.
“Victor.”
He smiled.
“You have Isabella’s eyes.”
“I’ve been told I have her temper.”
“That too.”
Rosa shook her head.
“Chloe, leave.”
Victor placed one hand on her shoulder.
Chloe forced herself not to react.
“You came alone?”
“Yes.”
Victor smiled.
“No.”
Chloe’s heart skipped.
He looked toward the ceiling.
“Dominic is outside the perimeter. Very obedient of him.”
In the van, Dominic heard every word.
Chloe knew.
“Then let Rosa go.”
“Soon.”
“You said family for family.”
“I did.”
Victor approached.
“Do you know what family means in our world?”
“Usually lying, apparently.”
He smiled.
“Smart.”
“Do you know what family means in mine?”
“What?”
“Showing up.”
Victor’s expression changed.
A gunshot echoed somewhere below the warehouse.
Leo.
Victor turned.
Chloe moved.
She drove her elbow into his throat.
It was not elegant.
It worked.
Victor stumbled.
Rosa kicked the chair backward.
Men appeared from the shadows.
Gunfire erupted.
Chloe dropped.
Dominic’s voice exploded through her earpiece.
“DOWN!”
She covered her head.
Leo emerged from the maintenance hatch firing.
Two guards fell.
Victor grabbed Chloe’s coat.
She twisted.
The fabric tore.
He struck her across the face.
Pain flashed white.
Chloe fell against a crate.
Victor pulled a gun.
Then another shot cracked.
The weapon flew from his hand.
Everyone looked toward the catwalk.
Gabriel stood above them holding a rifle.
He smiled.
“Family reunion.”
Victor’s face turned murderous.
“You.”
Gabriel fired again.
Lights shattered.
Darkness swallowed the warehouse.
Leo reached Chloe.
“Move!”
“What about Rosa?”
“Dominic’s coming.”
“No! One mile—”
“Pretty sure subtlety is over.”
Outside, three black vehicles crashed through the gate.
Dominic had decided the rules no longer mattered.
Men poured out.
The warehouse became chaos.
Chloe crawled toward Rosa.
A guard grabbed her ankle.
She kicked.
He pulled harder.
Then Rosa, still tied to the chair, smashed the wooden leg into his face.
“Never,” Rosa shouted, “grab my granddaughter.”
Chloe laughed hysterically.
“Not technically—”
“Not the time!”
Leo cut Rosa loose.
Dominic entered.
Chloe saw him through smoke and emergency lighting.
He saw her.
Everything else disappeared from his face.
He crossed the warehouse.
A man stepped between them.
Dominic shot him without slowing.
“Chloe!”
“I’m okay!”
He reached her.
His hands touched her face.
Saw the bruise.
His expression changed.
“Who?”
“Dominic.”
“Who hit you?”
“This is not the time.”
“It is exactly the time.”
Victor’s voice came from the far platform.
“You always were emotional.”
Dominic turned.
Victor stood near the dock doors.
Gabriel approached from the opposite side.
For one strange second, three branches of the Moretti war faced one another.
Victor smiled.
“You think Isabella was innocent?”
Dominic raised his gun.
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
Victor looked at Chloe.
“She wasn’t killed because she refused me.”
Chloe froze.
“She was killed because she discovered Carlo’s greatest secret.”
“What secret?”
Victor smiled.
“The Moretti organization never belonged to Carlo.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“It belonged to Isabella.”
Gabriel stopped moving.
Even he seemed surprised.
Victor continued.
“Your mother’s family financed the Morettis. Isabella inherited controlling interests through a trust. When she turned eighteen, Carlo would have lost everything unless she signed those assets over.”
Dominic stared.
“She refused.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped him kill her.”
Victor’s smile vanished.
“I tried to save her.”
Nobody spoke.
Chloe laughed bitterly.
“Now that is ambitious.”
Victor looked at her.
“Your father Andrew was the one who delayed the surgery.”
Chloe’s stomach dropped.
“No.”
“That tape was edited.”
Dominic’s face changed.
Victor continued.
“Andrew Bennett worked for Carlo. He was supposed to make Isabella’s death look natural after childbirth.”
“Liar,” Gabriel said.
Victor smiled.
“Ask Elaine.”
“She’s dead.”
“Is she?”
The warehouse went silent.
Chloe stopped breathing.
“What did you say?”
Victor reached slowly into his coat.
Dominic raised his gun.
“Careful.”
Victor removed a photograph.
He tossed it across the floor.
It slid to Chloe’s feet.
She bent.
Dominic said, “Don’t.”
Chloe picked it up.
The image was timestamped six days earlier.
A woman entered a building in Montreal.
Gray hair.
Thin body.
A familiar blue coat.
Chloe’s hands began to shake.
It was Elaine.
Impossible.
Chloe had watched her die.
Held her hand.
Signed funeral papers.
Selected the urn.
Victor smiled.
“You want the truth about your mother?”
Chloe looked at him.
“Come to Montreal.”
Gabriel raised his rifle.
Victor stepped backward toward the dock.
“Shoot me and you’ll never know.”
Dominic fired anyway.
The bullet struck Victor’s shoulder.
He staggered.
Chloe shouted, “Dominic!”
Victor laughed.
Then fell backward through the dock opening into the black harbor.
Men rushed toward the edge.
Nothing.
Only water.
Gabriel swore.
Dominic looked at Chloe.
She still held the photograph.
Her face had gone white.
“He’s lying,” Dominic said.
Chloe looked at the date again.
Six days.
“I buried her three months ago.”
“He’s lying.”
“What if he isn’t?”
Dominic approached.
“Chloe.”
“What if my whole life was a lie?”
His hands closed around hers.
“Then we find the truth.”
She looked up.
“Together?”
Something changed in his face.
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
“Together.”
Behind them, Gabriel cleared his throat.
“I hate to ruin the moment.”
Dominic turned.
Gabriel held Isabella’s red ledger.
“But Victor dropped something before he went swimming.”
In his other hand was a passport.
Canadian.
Name:
ELAINE BENNETT.
Recent photograph.
May you like
Chloe’s mother.
Alive.
