Chapter 10 - The Dead Man's Offer
Victor sat in the back seat as though he had been waiting for a dinner reservation instead of two fugitives escaping a corrupt police warehouse.
Sadi remained in the loading-bay doorway.
Enzo's gun never moved from Victor's chest.
"Get out of the car."
Victor smiled.
"You first."
"I am already out of the car."
"Then we are making progress."
Sadi hated his voice immediately.
It had the same controlled quality as Gabriel's, but none of the restraint felt earned.
Victor enjoyed being watched.
Gabriel made people watch because they were afraid to look away.
"Where is Gabriel?" Sadi asked.
Victor's eyes moved to her.
"Safe."
"That word means nothing coming from you."
"Fair."
"Show me."
Victor lifted a phone.
The screen displayed a live video feed.
Gabriel was sitting in a chair inside a small tiled room.
His left arm was immobilized across his chest.
A clean bandage covered the shoulder, but the gray discoloration had spread farther down the arm.
Two men stood behind him.
Mara was nowhere in sight.
Sadi stepped closer despite herself.
Gabriel looked conscious.
Barely.
Victor turned up the volume.
"Say hello to the waitress, little brother."
Gabriel looked toward the camera.
"Sadi, do not get in the car."
Victor smiled.
"Still giving orders."
Gabriel ignored him.
"Enzo, take her and go."
Enzo's gun remained steady.
"Working on it."
Victor tapped the screen.
One of the men behind Gabriel placed a pistol against the back of his head.
Sadi's pulse jumped.
"Stop."
Victor looked at her.
"Then get in."
"You shoot him, you lose whatever you need from him."
Victor's smile thinned.
"You are smarter than Matteo said."
"Matteo talks about me a lot for a man who claims I am irrelevant."
"You stopped being irrelevant the moment you found Tomas's key."
Enzo moved half a step forward.
"Let Gabriel go, and maybe you leave here breathing."
Victor laughed quietly.
"You spent fourteen years trying to sound like Vittorio."
"I spent fourteen years cleaning up after you."
"Then tonight must feel familiar."
Sadi looked at the phone again.
Gabriel's head had dropped slightly.
The monitor beside him showed a heart rate in the fifties.
She did not know enough medicine to interpret every number.
She knew enough to understand he was losing time.
"What do you want from me?"
Victor lowered the phone.
"Locker 317."
"You heard Matteo."
"I heard everything in that room."
Sadi looked toward the warehouse ceiling.
Victor smiled again.
"Dorsey's people are careless with microphones."
"And Matteo lets you spy on him?"
For the first time, Victor's expression cooled.
"Matteo does not let me do anything."
Sadi stored the reaction away.
"So you are not partners."
"Family partnerships are temporary arrangements with better tailoring."
Enzo's eyes narrowed.
"Matteo does not know you are here."
Victor looked at him.
"Now you are catching up."
Sadi understood.
Victor wanted the covenant before Matteo found it.
The conspiracy was splitting.
That gave her exactly one advantage.
A dangerous one.
"If I get in the car, Gabriel stays alive."
Victor nodded.
"Until I have what Tomas hid."
"Then what?"
"Then we discuss everyone's future."
"That sounds like a threat."
"It is a schedule."
Sadi looked at Enzo.
He shook his head almost imperceptibly.
She thought of her father's index card.
TRUST NO FALCONE.
Victor was a Falcone.
So was Gabriel.
Her father had not written an exception.
"I am not getting into that car alone."
Victor leaned back.
"Enzo is not invited."
"Then I am not coming."
He studied her.
"You think you are negotiating because I am polite."
"No."
Sadi stepped closer to the rear door.
"I think you are negotiating because you cannot open whatever my father hid without me."
The smile disappeared completely.
Enzo glanced at her.
She knew she had guessed correctly.
Victor looked at the brass key in her hand.
"Get in."
"Enzo drives behind us."
"No."
"Then shoot Gabriel and spend the next decade opening random lockers."
Victor stared at her.
Sadi stared back.
Finally he tapped the front seat.
"Enzo drives this car."
Enzo frowned.
Victor continued.
"My driver follows behind with the video feed."
"You sit where I can see your hands," Enzo said.
Victor laughed.
"There he is."
They got in.
Sadi sat beside Victor in the back seat.
Enzo drove.
Victor's men followed in a second car with Gabriel's live feed connected to the phone.
Sadi looked through the window as they left the industrial yard.
"Where is Gabriel?"
"You ask that often."
"You avoid answering often."
"He is somewhere Matteo will not look."
"Which is?"
"Useful."
Sadi turned toward him.
"If he dies before we reach the locker, you get nothing."
Victor's eyes flicked toward her.
"He will not die."
"Mara said the arm was failing."
"Mara is good."
"Where is she?"
"Alive."
"Another meaningless word."
Victor leaned his head back.
"You are exhausting."
"My father used to say the same thing."
A faint change crossed Victor's face.
Sadi noticed.
"You really did know him."
"Better than he wanted."
"He helped you disappear."
Victor looked at her.
She had guessed again.
This time he did not hide it quickly enough.
Enzo's eyes found hers in the rearview mirror.
Sadi continued.
"That is why my father spent years looking over his shoulder."
Victor's voice cooled.
"Tomas made choices."
"What choices?"
"Ask him."
"He is dead."
Victor looked out the window.
"Convenient for him."
Sadi wanted to hit him.
Instead she watched his hands.
No weapon visible.
Gold falcon ring on the right hand.
A thin scar crossed his thumb.
The same scar was visible in the old family photograph Matteo had shown her.
This was not an impersonator.
Victor Falcone had truly returned from the dead.
They reached the community gym at 4:06 a.m.
The sign above the entrance had lost three letters.
A handwritten notice announced reduced hours because of plumbing repairs.
Sadi had not been inside since her father's funeral.
The building looked smaller than she remembered.
Victor studied it through the window.
"Tomas loved ugly places."
Sadi turned on him.
"He loved places where people left him alone."
"Same thing in this city."
Enzo parked beside the service entrance.
Victor's second car stopped behind them.
Two armed men got out.
One held the phone showing Gabriel.
Sadi checked the screen.
His head was up again.
Relief annoyed her because she did not want Victor seeing it.
Victor did anyway.
"He has that effect on people."
"What effect?"
"Makes them care right before he gives them a reason to regret it."
Enzo opened the driver's door.
"Enough."
The service entrance still used the same mechanical lock Tomas had repaired every winter.
Sadi reached above the doorframe.
Her fingers found nothing.
Victor watched.
"Looking for a key?"
"Habit."
She crouched near the bottom hinge.
A narrow strip of metal was taped behind it.
The spare key was still there after all these years.
Sadi felt a painful pressure behind her ribs.
Her father had trusted ordinary places more than banks.
He had been right about that too.
They entered.
The gym smelled like rubber mats, old wood, and chlorine from the basement pool.
Emergency lights glowed over the basketball court.
Sadi led them through a side corridor toward the maintenance stairs.
Victor walked behind her.
Enzo walked behind Victor.
The two armed men stayed near the entrance.
"Locker 317 was never in the public locker room," Sadi said.
Victor's voice came from behind her.
"I know."
She stopped.
"Then why do you need me?"
Victor smiled.
"Because Tomas changed the lock."
They descended into the basement.
Rows of gray maintenance lockers lined the wall beside the boiler room.
Most had rusted shut.
Sadi found 317 at the end.
The brass key fit perfectly.
She looked at Enzo.
He raised his weapon slightly toward Victor.
"Open it."
Sadi turned the key.
The lock clicked.
She pulled the door open.
The locker was empty.
Victor's face hardened.
"No."
Sadi stared inside.
Bare metal.
Dust.
Nothing else.
Victor shoved past her and struck the back panel.
"Tomas."
His calm finally cracked.
Enzo almost smiled.
"Looks like he beat you again."
Victor spun toward him.
"Shut up."
Sadi ran her hand along the inside wall.
Her father never left spaces truly empty.
He hated wasted storage.
She knocked near the bottom.
Solid.
Then near the top.
Hollow.
"Move."
Victor stepped aside.
Sadi found two tiny screws beneath the lip of the locker roof.
She removed them with a coin from Enzo's pocket.
A false panel dropped down.
Inside sat a small cassette recorder, an envelope, and a second key.
Victor reached for them.
Sadi slapped his hand away.
"You said I open it."
"I said nothing about ownership."
Enzo raised the gun.
"Let her play it."
Victor stared at him.
Then he stepped back.
Sadi pressed the cassette player's cracked button.
Static filled the basement.
Her father's voice came through.
Older than she remembered.
Tired.
"Sadi, if you are hearing this, then the old company found you."
Her throat tightened.
"I am sorry."
She closed her eyes for a moment.
Tomas continued.
"There are things I should have told you when I was alive, but telling you would have made you part of them."
Victor's face had become unreadable.
"The first thing you need to know is that Rosa did not die because she made a mistake."
Sadi gripped the edge of the locker.
"She died because men with the Falcone name wanted a secret buried."
Victor shifted slightly.
Enzo noticed.
The recording crackled.
"The second thing is harder."
Sadi held her breath.
"Two years after your mother died, I helped Victor Falcone disappear."
Victor closed his eyes.
Sadi turned toward him.
May you like
Tomas's voice continued.
"And helping him was the worst mistake I ever made."
