Chapter 9 - The Empire Begins to FallBoston woke to scandal.
One moment he was holding the phone.
The next he was inside an elevator with Marcus, staring at security footage while his heart tried to break through his ribs.
The girls had vanished eight minutes earlier.
Their suite door had never opened.
No guard had entered.
No camera showed them leaving.
Impossible.
Eleanor reached the floor behind them.
“Where are they?”
“We’re checking.”
“That means you don’t know.”
Dante turned.
“We’ll find them.”
Her face changed.
“Don’t promise me what you can’t control.”
The words hurt because he had made exactly that promise on Newbury Street.
He had promised Ruby.
He had promised himself.
Marcus inspected the room.
Three beds.
Half-finished coloring books.
A plate with cookie crumbs.
An open bathroom window.
They were on the seventeenth floor.
“No,” Marcus muttered.
He looked outside.
A maintenance platform ran beneath the window.
“Exterior cleaning system.”
Dante swore.
Someone had accessed the facade.
“Hotel controls?” Eleanor asked.
“Maintenance office.”
Security found the log.
A manual override had been entered using the building engineer’s code.
The engineer was found unconscious in a supply room.
Camera footage finally captured a maintenance cart leaving the loading dock.
Inside, shapes under blankets.
Dante wanted every road closed.
Every bridge watched.
Every police department alerted.
Marcus stopped him.
“If Wren has law-enforcement connections—”
“He threatened my daughters.”
“So we use people we trust.”
Dante stared.
“Who do I trust?”
Marcus accepted the insult.
“I don’t know anymore.”
Eleanor stepped between them.
“This is what Wren wants.”
Both men looked at her.
“He spent decades surviving by making people suspicious of one another.”
She pointed at Marcus.
“Maybe he betrayed us.”
Marcus said nothing.
“Maybe Gabriel betrayed us. Maybe someone else did. But right now three little girls are scared somewhere.”
Her voice broke.
“I need both of you focused.”
Dante nodded.
Marcus did too.
Wren called again.
“You have forty-seven minutes.”
Dante’s voice turned ice cold.
“Let me hear them.”
A pause.
Then Ruby.
“Daddy?”
His eyes closed.
“I’m here.”
“Rose is crying.”
“I know.”
“Riley bit a man.”
Despite everything, Dante almost laughed.
“That’s my girl.”
Ruby whispered, “Are you coming?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
He looked at Eleanor.
“I’m coming.”
Wren returned.
“The Harbor Saint parking structure. Level six. Bring the certificates and tape. No police.”
“If they’re hurt—”
“I raised two children of my own, Dante. I’m not a monster.”
“No. Monsters usually think they’re reasonable.”
The line went dead.
They prepared a case with the certificates.
The tape was genuine.
The certificates were not.
Helen suggested switching them.
“They’ll inspect.”
“Not immediately.”
Dante looked toward Marcus.
“What else?”
“Tracker.”
“Too obvious.”
“Radioactive marker.”
Eleanor stared.
“What?”
“Harmless isotope. Security use.”
Dante nodded.
“Do it.”
The exchange point sat three blocks away.
Dante approached alone carrying the case.
A van waited.
The side door opened.
Ruby sat inside.
Her hands were tied.
No Rose.
No Riley.
Dante stopped.
“All three.”
A man wearing a baseball cap shook his head.
“One now. Two later.”
“Not the deal.”
“The deal changed.”
Dante set the case on the pavement.
“The case stays with me until all three are here.”
The man raised a gun toward Ruby.
Dante’s world narrowed.
“Open it.”
He obeyed.
The man examined the certificates.
He could not authenticate them visually.
“Tape.”
Dante handed it over.
“Ruby.”
The man shoved her out.
She ran to Dante.
He caught her.
“Where are your sisters?”
“Different car.”
“Who took them?”
“The old man.”
Wren himself.
That changed everything.
A shot rang out.
The kidnapper fell.
Dante covered Ruby.
Marcus’s team emerged from surrounding levels.
“Shooter unknown!” someone shouted.
Not Marcus’s men.
A second faction was attacking the kidnappers.
Chaos erupted.
Dante carried Ruby toward cover.
One of Wren’s men grabbed the case and fled.
Marcus chased him.
Eleanor reached Ruby and pulled her into her arms.
“Mommy!”
“Where are your sisters?”
Ruby was sobbing too hard to speak.
Dante crouched.
“Ruby. Look at me.”
She did.
“Did you hear anything?”
“Water.”
“What kind?”
“Big water.”
“Harbor?”
She nodded.
“And bells.”
Dante looked at Eleanor.
Boston Harbor had dozens of bells.
Churches.
Buoys.
Ships.
Then Ruby added:
“He said take them to the island.”
Marcus returned.
“The man escaped.”
“With the case?”
“Yes.”
Dante didn’t care.
“Island.”
Marcus immediately understood.
Boston Harbor Islands.
Too many possibilities.
“Did they say a name?” Dante asked.
Ruby thought hard.
“Something about a fort.”
Marcus said, “George’s Island. Fort Warren.”
Dante already moved.
The fort was closed after dark.
Perfect location.
Wren had helped fund a historical restoration there years ago.
Even better.
They reached a private marina.
Dante owned boats.
Of course he did.
Within minutes they were racing across black water toward Georges Island.
Wind cut through coats.
Boston’s lights glowed behind them.
Eleanor stood beside Dante.
“You should stay on the boat.”
She glared.
He corrected himself.
“I know. Worth trying.”
For the first time that night, she smiled faintly.
Then her face broke.
“What if—”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“You told me not to promise what I can’t control.”
“I’m not promising.”
He took her hand.
“I’m telling you we keep moving until we find them.”
She squeezed back.
Fort Warren rose from darkness.
An old granite fortress.
Marcus’s team approached quietly.
A light moved inside the archway.
They heard a child cry.
Eleanor started forward.
Dante held her back.
“Wait.”
A man stepped into the courtyard.
Judge Malcolm Wren.
Seventy-eight.
Silver hair.
Expensive overcoat.
Calm eyes.
Rose stood beside him.
Riley was held by another man.
Wren smiled.
“Family reunions are exhausting.”
Dante stepped forward.
“Let them go.”
“You brought the certificates?”
“They’re gone.”
Wren’s smile faded.
“Explain.”
“Your men were attacked.”
That actually surprised him.
“By whom?”
“I assumed you knew.”
For the first time, Wren looked concerned.
There was another player.
Caleb.
Or someone else.
Wren pulled Rose closer.
“Then we have a problem.”
Dante took another step.
“You won’t shoot a six-year-old.”
Wren sighed.
“That confidence is exactly why your father worried about you.”
“You knew my father well?”
“Better than his sons did.”
“Did you help fake Eleanor’s death?”
“I approved the medical examiner.”
Eleanor went rigid.
Wren noticed her.
“Miss Bennett. Or should I say Marchetti?”
Her voice shook with fury.
“You destroyed my family.”
“No. Your uncle destroyed your family. Vittorio and I simply profited from the aftermath.”
Dante’s jaw clenched.
“Very generous distinction.”
Wren glanced toward the harbor.
“The Russo name was supposed to endure.”
“You threatened my daughters.”
“Your father would have understood.”
“My father is dead.”
“Yes.”
Wren’s eyes sharpened.
“Because I killed him.”
Everything stopped.
Dante stared.
“You said stroke.”
“It was a stroke.”
Wren smiled faintly.
“With assistance.”
Dante’s hands curled.
Wren continued.
“Vittorio became sentimental after Catherine’s first stroke. He wanted to confess.”
Catherine had been right.
Love had made him afraid.
Perhaps guilt had eventually made him human.
Too late.
But human.
“So you killed him.”
“I protected what we built.”
“You mean what you stole.”
Wren’s expression changed.
“Careful.”
“No.”
Dante took another step.
“You spent thirty years making everyone afraid of you.”
Another.
“You threatened mothers.”
Another.
“You stole children.”
Wren raised his weapon.
Dante stopped.
“And now,” Dante said, “you’re hiding behind six-year-old girls.”
Wren’s jaw tightened.
“Very poetic.”
“No.”
A voice echoed behind him.
“Accurate.”
Caleb Voss emerged from the shadows holding a pistol.
Everyone turned.
Eleanor’s face drained.
“Caleb.”
He looked at her.
“You should have stayed in the basement.”
Rage flashed across Dante’s face.
Wren seemed irritated rather than surprised.
“You were supposed to retrieve the certificates.”
“They belong to my family.”
Wren laughed.
“You murdered your family.”
Caleb aimed at him.
“You murdered my brother too.”
“You ordered it.”
“I ordered him frightened.”
Wren rolled his eyes.
“After thirty years, you’ve developed a conscience?”
“No.”
Caleb smiled.
“I developed greed.”
He wanted the thirty-two percent.
The two villains faced one another.
And for the first time, Dante saw an opening.
He looked at Riley.
She looked back.
Then she did what Ruby had said she already did once that evening.
She bit the man holding her.
Hard.
He screamed.
Rose dropped.
Dante lunged.
Gunfire exploded across the courtyard.
Marcus’s team moved.
Eleanor ran to Rose.
Dante tackled Wren.
Caleb fired.
A bullet struck stone.
Then another shot.
Caleb jerked backward.
Marcus stood twenty yards away with his weapon raised.
Caleb fell.
Wren slammed Dante against a wall.
For an old man, he was surprisingly strong.
He reached for a dropped gun.
Dante got there first.
The barrel pressed against Wren’s chest.
One movement.
One shot.
Seven years of grief could end in half a second.
Wren smiled.
“Do it.”
Dante’s finger tightened.
Then he heard Ruby crying.
“Daddy.”
He looked at her.
All three daughters were watching.
Eleanor too.
Dante lowered the gun.
“No.”
Wren’s smile vanished.
Dante stepped back.
“My daughters don’t watch me become you.”
Federal agents poured through the archway.
Gabriel had contacted them from the hospital.
Not local police.
Federal investigators.
Wren stared in disbelief as they handcuffed him.
Caleb survived his wound.
Barely.
He was arrested beside him.
Rose ran into Dante’s arms.
Riley followed.
Ruby joined them.
He held all three.
Eleanor stood several feet away, crying.
Dante reached one arm toward her.
This time she came willingly.
For the first time in seven years, the people who had stolen their lives were in chains.
But the story was not over.
Because when agents opened the case recovered from Wren’s man, they discovered something impossible.
The forged certificates had been replaced.
Inside were the originals.
And beneath them was a note.
Dante recognized the handwriting.
Gabriel’s.
May you like
I knew you’d try something reckless.
You’re welcome.
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