Chương 13
Marco pressed the gun harder beneath her jaw.
Matteo’s finger tightened near the trigger.
The angle was wrong. Marco’s body was shielded by Sofia’s. One shot might pass through both of them.
Rizzo moved a fraction to the left.
Marco noticed.
“I’ll kill her.”
“No,” Sofia said.
Her father looked down.
She drove her heel onto his instep and threw her weight backward rather than forward.
The movement was ugly and desperate. Her broken ribs could not support it. She cried out, but the sudden collapse pulled Marco off balance. His gun shifted away from her chin.
Matteo fired.
The bullet struck Marco high in the shoulder.
He fell against the table, losing the pistol.
Sofia hit the floor.
Matteo reached her first.
She recoiled when his hand touched her arm.
He stopped at once.
“It’s me.”
Her eyes focused.
Across the room, Marco crawled toward the dropped gun with his good arm.
Nico, still bound to the chair, kicked it away.
Marco looked at his son.
“You ungrateful little bastard.”
Nico spat blood onto the floor. “You ruined my tux.”
The absurd complaint hung in the room for half a second.
Then Rizzo laughed once, shocked by it.
The sound broke something open. Men moved. Weapons were collected. Enzo was forced against the wall. Someone cut Nico’s restraints. Two Barone soldiers dragged Marco away from the pistol.
Matteo remained beside Sofia.
“Can you breathe?”
“Yes.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
Hall’s instructions returned to him. Do not touch without permission.
“May I help you sit?”
Sofia closed her eyes, then nodded.
He slid one arm behind her shoulders and lifted carefully. She gripped his sleeve, not to stop him but to steady herself.
Police sirens approached outside.
Not one car.
Several.
Keller had used the information from the prepaid phone, the medical report, and Sofia’s statement to push for emergency action. The arrival was later than Matteo wanted and earlier than Marco expected.
Rizzo looked toward the ceiling. “This is going to become paperwork.”
Matteo almost told him to run.
Instead, he placed his gun on the floor and raised his hands.
The decision surprised everyone, including Matteo.
Rizzo stared at him. “You’re serious?”
“If we leave now, Marco becomes the victim.”
Enzo twisted against the guard holding him. “You fool. Do you know what they’ll find?”
“Yes.”
The word cost more than Matteo allowed his face to show.
Pier Nine. Illegal weapons. Financial records. Men loyal to Enzo. Men loyal to Matteo. A structure built over decades did not divide neatly into innocent and guilty pieces.
Sofia looked at him.
“You could lose everything,” she said.
Matteo glanced at Marco bleeding beside the table, at Nico’s swollen face, at the empty plastic ties on the floor.
“Not everything.”
Detective Keller entered with officers in tactical gear.
The next hour was loud, procedural, and humiliating.
Everyone was separated. Weapons were bagged. Hands were tested for residue. Questions were repeated. Marco demanded an ambulance and an attorney in the same breath. Enzo invoked names that no longer frightened the people hearing them.
Sofia gave Keller permission to recover the recorder from beneath her medical wrap. Hall was called to the scene and arrived furious enough to frighten uniformed officers.
“You went into a basement,” she said while examining Sofia.
“Yes.”
“With broken ribs.”
“Yes.”
“Do you collect bad decisions?”
Sofia looked toward Matteo, who sat handcuffed against the opposite wall while an officer reviewed his identification.
“I married one.”
Hall pressed her lips together.
Matteo laughed despite himself.
The laugh hurt somewhere he had no medical name for.
Nico was taken to the hospital under police protection. Sofia went with him. Before leaving, she crossed the basement toward Matteo.
An officer stepped between them.
“She’s my wife,” Matteo said.
Sofia looked at the handcuffs. “Temporarily.”
The officer glanced from one to the other and moved aside.
Sofia stopped an arm’s length away.
“Are they arresting you?”
“They haven’t decided.”
“Did you know about the explosives?”
“No.”
“Will they believe that?”
“Some will.”
She nodded, accepting the uncertainty.
Matteo wanted to tell her he would come to the hospital. He did not know whether he would be permitted.
Instead, he said, “You chose well.”
Her expression tightened. “Nico nearly died.”
“So did you.”
“That doesn’t make it well.”
“No.” He looked at Marco being wheeled past on a stretcher, pale with rage. “But it made it yours.”
Sofia stood silently.
Then she reached out and touched two fingers to his cuffed hand.
The contact lasted less than a second.
She left with Hall.
Matteo spent the night in an interview room at a federal building downtown.
The chair was designed to become uncomfortable slowly. By dawn, it had succeeded. Two attorneys arrived on his behalf, followed by a third sent by Enzo whom Matteo refused to see.
Investigators asked about Pier Nine, the Moretti organization, Marco’s ledgers, Enzo’s payments, and the social club. Matteo answered some questions. His attorneys objected to most. He surrendered access to the files Sofia had copied but not to unrelated business records without warrants.
The process was neither cleansing nor heroic.
It was negotiation under fluorescent lights.
By noon, Marco had been charged with kidnapping, assault, weapons offenses, and conspiracy tied to the explosives. Additional charges would depend on evidence and witnesses who had not yet decided how brave they felt.
Enzo was held on conspiracy allegations and financial crimes.
Matteo was released pending further investigation. His passport was surrendered. Several Moretti-controlled properties were searched before he reached the sidewalk.
Rizzo met him outside with coffee.
“You look terrible,” Rizzo said.
“You look worse.”
“I slept in a chair at the hospital.”
“How is Nico?”
“Concussion. Two broken fingers. He asked for pancakes.”
“And Sofia?”
Rizzo handed Matteo the coffee. “She asked whether you were charged.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That the government is still deciding which parts of you are illegal.”
Matteo drank. The coffee was too sweet.
May you like
“You put sugar in this.”
“You’ve had a difficult day.”
