Chương 12
“Can you get Rosa out?”
“No.”
“Can you get Gabriel out?”
“Yes.”
“Then do it.”
Gabriel said something muffled.
Dario answered, “He refuses to leave without Rosa.”
“That sounds like him,” Melissa said.
Gabriel’s voice returned. “Do not bring Leo.”
“We aren’t.”
“Do not lie to me while holding my grandson.”
Melissa looked at the baby beneath her jacket.
“I have no safe place to leave him.”
There was silence.
Then Gabriel asked, “Is Adrian there?”
“Yes.”
“Put him on.”
Adrian took the phone again.
Gabriel’s voice became hard. “You will get my daughter and that child away from this.”
“Salvatore will kill Rosa.”
“Rosa made her choice years ago.”
“That does not make her disposable.”
“No. It makes her my responsibility.”
Adrian looked at Melissa. “Your daughter disagrees.”
“She often does.”
“She married me.”
“My point exactly.”
Despite everything, Melissa let out a short, broken laugh.
Gabriel heard it.
His voice softened. “There she is.”
Melissa covered her mouth.
The baby shifted against her. His tiny hand emerged from the blanket and opened in the cold air.
Adrian spoke into the phone. “I can bring Salvatore what he wants.”
“No,” Gabriel said.
“False access codes. The ring. A copy of the ledger.”
“No.”
“We need him to admit the old murders and tonight’s attack.”
“Men like Salvatore confess only when they believe confession is another form of power.”
“I know.”
“You are more like him than you think.”
Adrian did not react outwardly.
Melissa did.
“He isn’t,” she said.
Both men fell silent.
She had defended Adrian before deciding whether she trusted him. The realization unsettled her.
Gabriel said, “Then prove me wrong.”
The plan formed around limitations rather than courage.
Maya would contact federal investigators she had already vetted through Adrian’s emergency protocol. Daniel would retrieve Teresa and Luis, then deliver copies of the evidence to Maya. Dario would keep Salvatore at Pier Four until dawn by claiming Adrian was negotiating through intermediaries.
Melissa would go to the terminal wearing the ring.
Adrian objected until his voice became quiet, which was when he was most dangerous.
“No.”
“Salvatore needs to see the ring.”
“He needs to believe you are alive. A video would do that.”
“He will demand proof it is current.”
“We can provide it.”
“He knows how you work. He will assume manipulation.”
Adrian moved his chair between Melissa and the storage unit door. “You gave birth twenty-one days ago. You are bleeding. You have been shot at twice tonight. This is not a debate.”
“You don’t get to use my body to end the debate.”
“I get to use the fact that you can barely stand.”
“And I get to use the fact that he has Rosa.”
“Rosa raised you to survive.”
“She raised me because my father couldn’t. I will not repay her by hiding.”
“You have Leo.”
“Yes.”
The word stopped him.
Melissa lowered her voice. “Every choice is about him now. That does not mean every choice is to run.”
“It should be tonight.”
“And tomorrow? Salvatore controls the companies, the police contacts, the house, and every story told about our families. We spend our lives moving from basement to basement while he decides when to try again?”
“I can end that without you.”
“How?”
Adrian said nothing.
She saw the answer.
“You intend to kill him.”
“He tried to kill my wife and son.”
“He tried to kill you.”
“I’m accustomed to that.”
“I am not.”
Adrian’s expression shifted.
Melissa stepped closer until the front of his wheelchair touched her knees.
“If you shoot him, someone else inherits the lie. Maybe Dario. Maybe one of Salvatore’s sons. Maybe Leo spends thirty years being told the Romanos murdered his grandfather and the Morettis avenged him. We have already seen what that creates.”
“He may not give us another option.”
“Then we make one.”
Daniel returned from speaking with Maya. “Federal agents can reach the outer perimeter by five forty. They will not enter without visible probable cause or a direct threat they can document.”
“We have an active hostage,” Melissa said.
“We have a statement over an unsecured line from a man legally declared dead thirty years ago.”
“Gabriel can identify himself.”
“And explain why he has avoided law enforcement for three decades.”
Adrian said, “We need live audio from inside.”
Maya could provide two wireless transmitters disguised as shirt fasteners. Her investigator would deliver them beneath the highway near the terminal.
“What about Leo?” Adrian asked.
Daniel looked at Melissa.
Teresa was the only person Melissa trusted who remained mobile and outside Salvatore’s organization. She and Luis were hiding in a hotel near Newark Airport, where cameras, staff, and constant traffic offered imperfect protection.
Leaving Leo felt physically impossible.
At the hotel’s service entrance, Teresa opened the van door and reached for him.
Melissa did not let go.
The baby slept against her chest, one cheek flattened against the blanket. He smelled of milk and the mild soap from his bath the previous evening, when Adrian had complained that the water temperature changed every time someone touched the faucet.
That life was less than twelve hours away.
It seemed fictional now.
Teresa waited.
“You hold his head here,” Melissa said.
“I remember.”
“He ate forty minutes ago.”
“I know.”
“There are bottles in the bag, but he may refuse them.”
“I have met babies.”
“He makes a sound before he wakes up. Like a little cough.”
Teresa’s face softened. “Melissa.”
“I need one more second.”
No one hurried her.
Adrian sat in the van, turned partly away. Daniel watched the parking lot. Luis stood inside the hotel door, pale and ashamed.
Melissa kissed Leo’s forehead.
Then she placed him in Teresa’s arms.
Her body resisted after her hands had released him. Her shoulders remained curved as if his weight were still there.
Teresa stepped inside.
Melissa followed two paces before stopping.
Adrian reached for her hand.
May you like
She did not take it.
At five eighteen, they parked beneath the elevated roadway three blocks from Pier Four.
