Chapter 35 - The Architect in the Shadows
The barrel of the Glock pressed firmly against the base of my skull. Cold steel against warm skin.
In front of me, Uncle Arthur didn't even flinch. His weathered hands remained resting on the keyboard of his laptop, his expression hollow, resigned. He had known before we even walked through the door.
"Julian," I said, keeping my voice as steady as humanly possible, though my entire body screamed to run. "You cried in the car in Rotterdam. You wept on Gabriel’s shoulder."
"I was weeping because you two wouldn't die when you were supposed to," Julian replied casually, his tone completely transformed. The frantic, terrified subordinate was gone. In his place was a man who spoke with cold, clinical authority. "The hit at the Maasvlakte terminal was supposed to clean up the board. You, Gabriel, the Dutch contacts—all supposed to go down in a container fire. But Gabriel had to play the hero, as usual."
"You worked for Matteo all along," I said, my mind racing through every move we had made over the last six months. Every safehouse. Every flight path. Every document we had uncovered.
"Matteo?" Julian laughed, a dry, mocking sound that echoed down the concrete corridor. "Matteo is an arrogant old fossil who thinks this city still runs on extortion and cement kickbacks. Matteo provided the muscle to take out your father and Slip Nine because he wanted Gabriel out of the Don’s chair. But who do you think organized the port logistics, Maya? Who do you think cleared the customs manifests for the Caledonia?"
"You," I breathed. "You were the inside man at Vance & Sons."
"I am the rightful owner of Vance & Sons," Julian hissed, stepping closer, the gun pressing harder into my scalp. "My branch of the family did the grunt work in the shipyards for forty years while your father sat in his oak-paneled office pretending we were legitimate. And your brother Leo... self-righteous, arrogant Leo... he found out I was skimming fifteen percent off the southern cargo lanes. He threatened to go to Gabriel."
"So you had him killed," I whispered, fury boiling through the cold paralysis of fear.
"I had Matteo arrange the hit," Julian corrected. "Because Matteo was stupid enough to leave his fingerprints on the crew. It was supposed to look like a mob dispute over territory. Leo was collateral damage. But your father wouldn't let it go. And then *you* came back from New York, translating Signora Rossi’s little hand signals, stirring up the water until the entire lake was boiling."
"Gabriel is at Table Seven right now," I said. "He knows Matteo is there. If he doesn't hear from me, your plan collapses."
"Gabriel isn't meeting Matteo alone at Table Seven, Maya," Julian said, a cruel smile touching his voice. "Gabriel is meeting Matteo, two city inspectors, and four armed plainclothes detectives working off my payroll. The moment Gabriel steps into that private room, he’s going to be gunned down for 'resisting arrest' in connection to the Slip Nine bombing. Matteo takes the fall for the explosion, Gabriel takes a dozen bullets in the chest, and I walk into the probate court tomorrow morning as the sole surviving heir to the Vance port authority."
"And Arthur?" I asked, looking at my uncle.
"Arthur’s battery is running out," Julian said smoothly. "A tragic accident. An old invalid trapped in a storage unit fire. The third industrial fire of the week. The city will chalk it up to faulty wiring."
"You forgot one thing, Julian," Arthur spoke up, his voice raspy but clear.
Julian’s eyes flicked to the old man in the wheelchair. "What’s that, old man?"
"You’re using my network," Arthur said.
Before Julian could react, Arthur slammed both palms down onto the laptop keyboard, striking a preset macro sequence.
The heavy overhead lights in the entire warehouse instantly shut off, plunging the locker bay into pitch-black darkness.
"Down!" Arthur roared.
I dropped instantly to the cold concrete, rolling hard to my left against the metal locker walls.
A deafening gunshot shattered the darkness. The muzzle flash illuminated Julian’s face for a fraction of a second, his eyes wild, firing blindly toward where my head had been.
The bullet ricocheted off the steel gate with a terrifying screech.
I scrambled on hands and knees through the dark, reaching into my boot for the small ceramic folding knife Gabriel had slipped into my pocket before we left Saint Jude’s.
Another shot blasted into the darkness, chewing into the wooden crates beside Arthur.
"Maya!" Julian shouted, his voice echoing in the blackness, mask slipping into pure rage. "You can't crawl out of here! The front doors are electronically locked!"
I held my breath, pressed flat against the floor behind the wheel of Arthur’s chair.
In the absolute dark, I heard the faint, rhythmic sound of metal scraping against metal—Julian reloading his magazine.
Seven seconds. That was how long it took to reload a Glock in the dark.
May you like
I rose from the floor, lunging forward with all the weight of my grief, my rage, and my father's memory guiding my hand.
***
