Chương 6
Luca pressed his face against Dante’s arm.
Rocco’s voice softened.
“Luca, are you there?”
Dante reached for Marco’s phone, but Luca spoke first.
“Yes.”
“How are you, little man?”
“Cold.”
“There are warm cars outside. Your room at my house is ready.”
“I don’t have a room at your house.”
“You do now.”
Dante took the phone.
“You don’t speak to him.”
“He is my nephew.”
“He is my son.”
“And you brought him to a cabin surrounded by armed men.”
Mara glanced at Marco. She had not seen weapons outside, but she had never believed they were absent.
Rocco said, “Mara, I’m sorry we’re meeting this way.”
“We aren’t meeting.”
“Not yet.”
“You sent someone onto my property.”
“I sent a photographer. The distinction matters.”
“Only to people who bill by the hour.”
Rocco laughed quietly.
“I see why Dante chose you.”
“He didn’t choose me. He used an address.”
“That is how Dante chooses most people.”
Dante’s eyes went to Mara, then away.
Rocco continued, “You have something my brother needs. He has something I need. None of this concerns your future unless you make it.”
“My future is currently parked around my house.”
“Those are Dante’s vehicles.”
“Some of them.”
A pause.
Rocco’s voice lost a degree of warmth. “You noticed.”
“I notice numbers that don’t reconcile.”
“That habit has cost you before.”
Dante looked sharply at the phone.
Rocco said, “Bring the ring to the old Bellaro terminal in Escanaba by ten. Sign a statement confirming that the Northline discrepancies were audit errors. I will pay for the damage to your property, restore your professional standing, and make sure your sister’s family never hears your name in connection with this.”
“My sister knows my name.”
“She doesn’t know what you deleted.”
Mara’s body went still.
Marco watched her.
Dante whispered, “What is he talking about?”
Rocco heard him.
“Ask your expert why the regulator never received page forty-seven.”
The line disconnected.
Only the fluorescent hum remained.
Mara walked to the wall and pressed both palms against the cold concrete.
Behind her, Dante said her name.
She stared at the faded outline where a safety poster had once hung.
“Do not,” she said.
“What was page forty-seven?”
“Not in front of Luca.”
Luca spoke into the wolf’s fur. “Everybody says that before they say something worse.”
Dante’s face tightened.
Marco went to the boarded window and looked through a split in the plywood.
“Vehicles approaching from the north,” he said. “At least six.”
Mara pushed away from the wall.
The old fear had returned, but it was no longer shapeless. It had a page number, a man’s voice, and the memory of a conference room eight years earlier.
Page forty-seven had contained the name of a junior accountant named Priya Shah, who had copied internal payment authorizations after Mara asked where the Northline invoices originated. Priya had a student visa, a mother waiting for surgery in New Jersey, and no understanding of what Bellaro men meant when they said loyalty. When company investigators discovered the copied files, Mara had removed Priya’s access record from the draft report and substituted her own credentials.
The decision had protected Priya.
It had also allowed Bellaro’s attorneys to call the entire audit compromised.
Mara had told herself she would recreate the evidence once Priya was safe. Then the threats began. Her sister’s address appeared in an envelope with photographs of her nieces walking to school. Mara resigned, deleted the final report from the firm’s system, and left Chicago.
She had saved page forty-seven.
Not because she was brave. Because she was angry.
The copy was in a bank box under her mother’s maiden name.
Dante watched her with the impatience of a man who could feel time leaving his body.
“You kept it,” he said.
Mara turned.
“I kept one page.”
“Where?”
“Not here.”
“Can it unlock the archive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can it prove the transactions?”
“By itself? No.”
“Combined with my records?”
“Possibly.”
Marco lowered his radio. “We need to move.”
“Where?” Mara asked.
“The southern road.”
“Rocco knows we’re here. He will know every road.”
“Then we use his invitation,” Dante said.
Mara stared at him. “You want to go to Escanaba.”
“I want him to believe we are.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I don’t need to stand to surrender a ring.”
“You’re not surrendering it.”
Dante’s eyebrows lifted.
She disliked the satisfaction in his face.
“I’m not joining your side,” she said. “I’m preventing your brother from receiving the only thing everyone seems willing to terrorize a child for.”
Luca looked up.
Mara crouched in front of him.
“I should have said that differently.”
“I know what terrorize means.”
“I’m sorry you do.”
He considered her, then held out the stuffed wolf.
“Milo can sit with you.”
She accepted the toy. The worn fur was warm from his hands.
“Just until we leave,” he said.
“Understood.”
Marco crossed the room. “There’s a township plow garage two miles east. A road crew starts at seven. Public employees, cameras, radios.”
Mara checked the wall clock. Six twenty-three.
“You want witnesses,” she said.
“I want Rocco to avoid doing anything irreversible.”
Dante gave him a tired look. “You still think embarrassment is his limit.”
“No. I think he wants to remain the respectable brother.”
The first approaching engine became audible outside.
Mara handed Milo back to Luca and moved toward the door.
“We leave the tractor.”
“What do we take?” Marco asked.
“There’s an old utility tunnel beneath the dock.”
He stared at her.
She shrugged. “The station used to pump lake water into the tanks. The service conduit ends near the plow garage access road.”
“Is it passable?”
“I went through it when I was sixteen.”
“That was nineteen years ago.”
“Twenty.”
Dante managed a faint smile. “Important correction.”
May you like
“It was one of my better years.”
They entered the rear laboratory, where long fiberglass tanks stood empty beneath pipes furred with rust. Mara pulled aside a steel cabinet and exposed a square maintenance hatch.
