Chapter 8 - PIER TWELVE
The highway blurred beneath them.
Sophia held the phone so tightly her fingers hurt.
Fifty-three minutes.
“Faster.”
“I’m doing eighty-five.”
“Do ninety-five.”
“I’d prefer arriving alive.”
Sophia rounded on Valentina.
“You don’t get to make jokes.”
“I’m not.”
Valentina gripped the wheel.
“You think I don’t know what Victor does to people?”
“You worked for him.”
“So did your husband.”
Sophia went still.
“What?”
Valentina immediately regretted saying it.
“Daniel wasn’t part of Victor’s operation.”
“He moved containers.”
“He was a forklift supervisor.”
“He helped move containers nobody inspected.”
“He didn’t know what was inside.”
“At first.”
Sophia felt sick.
“You’re lying.”
“Daniel found out. That’s why he tried to expose them.”
Valentina looked at her.
“He collected proof for months.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“To protect you.”
That hurt more than Sophia expected.
Daniel had carried terror alone.
And she had spent two years believing his death had been meaningless.
It hadn’t been.
“He hid something,” Valentina said.
“What?”
“I don’t know. Victor never found it.”
Sophia looked down at Daniel’s file.
Inside the folder was a photocopy of his locker inventory.
Wallet.
Phone.
Wedding ring.
Bronze medallion.
Sophia blinked.
“Medallion.”
“What?”
“Daniel wore a St. Christopher medal every day.”
“So?”
“They never returned it.”
Valentina’s eyes shifted.
“Victor has a collection.”
Sophia felt cold.
“What kind of collection?”
“Trophies.”
Sophia wanted to throw up.
Forty-one minutes.
They reached the industrial district near Newark.
Cranes rose against the afternoon sky like steel skeletons.
Pier Twelve sat behind warehouses marked MORETTI GLOBAL RELIEF.
Ambulance logos were painted on several containers.
Medical aid.
Exactly as Sophia had overheard.
Valentina parked beneath an abandoned rail bridge.
“We walk from here.”
Sophia grabbed the document bag.
Valentina opened the glove compartment and removed a handgun.
Sophia recoiled.
“You know how to use that?”
“Unfortunately.”
They crossed the freight yard.
A man stepped from behind a container.
Gun raised.
“Bag.”
Sophia recognized him from the estate.
One of Carlo’s men.
Valentina raised her weapon.
He laughed.
“You won’t shoot.”
Valentina fired into his leg.
He screamed and dropped.
Sophia stared.
Valentina said, “I’ve had a difficult afternoon.”
They continued.
Thirty-four minutes.
At Warehouse Six, the steel door stood open.
Inside, lights illuminated a single chair.
Mia was tied to it.
“Mommy!”
Sophia ran.
Valentina grabbed her.
“Wait.”
Mia cried.
“Mommy!”
Sophia saw something beneath the chair.
Wires.
A pressure plate.
A bomb.
Then Victor Moretti’s voice echoed from the dark.
May you like
“Welcome to Pier Twelve.”
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