Chapter 55 - The Executive Suite
The fourth floor of the Vance Marine administrative building looked like an anachronism.
While the docks below were grimy with industrial oil and road salt, the executive floor was paneled in dark burled walnut, carpeted in deep green wool, and lined with brass maritime instruments from the nineteenth century. It was built by men who wanted to pretend they were merchant barons rather than port smugglers.
As the elevator doors opened, the silence of the corridor was unnatural.
Two men in dark suits stood outside the boardroom doors at the end of the hall. Unlike the rough yard workers downstairs, these were sleek, corporate enforcers—lawyers with holsters under their Italian wool.
Gabriel stepped out first. His weapon was in his hand, held low against his thigh, out of sight but primed. Leo followed close behind, clutching the leather portfolio containing the 1998 Giammona trust deeds.
I walked alongside Sofia, matching her slow, rhythmic cane strikes.
The guards stepped forward to block the double doors. "Mr. Rossi. The meeting has already begun. You are not on the ledger."
Gabriel didn't argue. He closed the distance in two strides, drove the heel of his palm into the first guard’s sternum, driving the man back against the mahogany wall with a sickening thud, and jammed the barrel of his automatic directly beneath the man’s chin.
The second guard reached inside his jacket, but Leo, moving with surprising agility for a harbor accountant, swung his heavy brass-cornered briefcase directly into the man’s knee. The man grunted in agony, collapsing to one knee.
"Clear," Gabriel said, his voice completely level.
Sofia didn't even glance at the men on the floor. She pushed open the double doors with the tip of her cane.
The boardroom was dominated by a twenty-foot mahogany table. At the far end sat four men in expensive tailored suits—representatives from the Great Lakes shipping consortiums, men whose companies moved freight from Duluth to Montreal.
And standing at the window, looking out over the misty expanse of Slip Nine with a crystal glass of amber liquor in his hand, was Giancarlo Rossi.
He looked shockingly like Hector, but leaner, harder, his silver hair cropped close to an angular skull. He wore a charcoal three-piece suit without a tie, exuding the effortless calm of an executive who had just completed a hostile takeover.
"I told security to keep the hallway quiet," Giancarlo said without turning around. "We are finalizing the transit insurance allocation."
"The insurance is void, Giancarlo," Sofia said clearly, stepping into the center of the Persian rug.
Giancarlo froze.
The glass in his hand remained suspended midway to his lips. Slowly, deliberately, the man who had supposedly died thirty years ago turned around.
His eyes, ice-gray and predatory, widened in genuine, paralyzing astonishment. He stared at Sofia, then at Gabriel, and finally at me.
"Sofia?" he murmured, the name sounding foreign on his tongue.
The four shipping executives at the table exchanged uneasy glances, their pens hovering above unsigned corporate transfer documents.
"You've gained weight, brother-in-law," Sofia said, walking toward the head of the table. "Living in Toronto under a dead sailor's passport agrees with you."
Giancarlo recovered quickly. The shock vanished behind a veneer of smooth, corporate arrogance. He set his glass down on the polished wood with a soft clink.
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"Hector always said you were stubborn, Sofia," Giancarlo said, his voice smooth as silk. "I see he also failed to mention that the convent school taught you ventriloquism."
"Hector knew what I permitted him to know," Sofia said, stopping at the empty chair at the head of the table—Hector’s chair. She pulled it back and sat down with imperial slowness. "And now, gentlemen," she said, addressing the frozen executives, "let us discuss the real terms of the Great Lakes transit corridor."
