Chapter 2 - The Gate Delivery
The sleet had begun to mix with the freezing New Orleans rain by the time Carmine, Benny, and Nell reached the grand iron gates at the front of the Orsini estate.
Headlights cut through the gloom, casting long, distorted shadows across the wet live oaks. An unmarked white delivery van idled near the stone pillar, its hazard lights blinking in a slow, mocking rhythm. As Carmine’s black sedan pulled up behind it, the van’s tires shrieked against the asphalt, throwing gravel as it slammed into reverse, whipped around the corner, and vanished into the Garden District labyrinth.
In the center of the wet driveway sat a heavy, industrial wooden crate.
Carmine stepped out of the car, the freezing rain instantly dampening his dark hair. He didn't reach for an umbrella. He walked straight toward the crate, his eyes narrowing as he spotted a white envelope nailed directly into the pine wood with a three-inch galvanized nail.
“Boss, wait,” Benny warned, his hand drifting instinctively toward his holster beneath his heavy overcoat. “Could be rigged.”
“If they wanted to blow up the gate, they wouldn't have bothered leaving a letter,” Carmine said flatly.
He pulled the nail free with a sharp tug, plucked the thick, unadorned envelope from the wood, and slid the flap open. Inside was a single polaroid photograph and a handwritten note.
Carmine looked down at the photograph.
It showed an elderly man with silver-white hair sitting in a wheelchair inside a sterile, sunlit room that reeked of institutional care. A heavy leather strap secured his chest to the chair. His head lolled slightly to the side, his eyes vacant and staring at the linoleum floor.
Emmett Fontaine.
Nell had followed them out into the rain. She pushed past Benny, her eyes landing on the photograph in Carmine’s hand. A sound broke from her throat—half gasp, half sob—that sounded like something tearing.
“Papa,” she choked out, stumbling forward until the rain soaked through her gray uniform. She snatched the polaroid from Carmine’s fingers, her hands shaking so violently she almost dropped it into the puddles. “They said he died in the smoke. They told me the smoke ruined his lungs and his heart stopped at the county hospital three days after the fire.”
“They lied,” Carmine said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. He turned his attention to the note pinned beneath the photo.
He read the block-lettered words aloud:
“The girl works for you now, Orsini. Keep your nose out of dead bakeries, or the old man’s oxygen tank runs dry by midnight.”
Nell crumpled the photograph against her chest, tears mingling with the cold rain streaming down her cheeks. “Where is he? Where did they take him?”
Carmine looked up at Benny, his face carved from dark, unyielding stone. The game of polite corporate intimidation was over. Someone had crossed the threshold of his estate, threatened his household, and kidnapped a broken old man to silence a baker who counted out seven minutes.
“Benny,” Carmine said, his voice dropping into an absolute, freezing command. “Call the district harbor police. Wake up every manager we have at Crescent Line Logistics. And bring the car around.”
Nell gripped Carmine’s wet sleeve, her gray eyes burning with a sudden, desperate fury that eclipsed her grief. “You can’t just walk into their warehouses. They’ll kill him.”
May you like
Carmine looked down at her hand on his arm, then met her gaze with an intensity that made the cold rain feel irrelevant.
“They might,” Carmine said softly. “But they’re going to have to get through me to do it.”
