Chapter 4 - Midnight at Pier 17
Gabriel arrived at Pier 17 eleven minutes before midnight.
Alone.
At least that was what Victor was supposed to believe.
Snow blew sideways across the abandoned shipping yard. Rusting containers rose around him like tombstones. Beyond them, black water slapped against the frozen pilings.
Gabriel carried the flash drive in his coat pocket.
Tommy and 12 men waited 2 blocks away with strict orders not to move until Gabriel gave the signal.
A warehouse door opened.
Victor stepped outside.
At 63, he still carried himself like Rossi royalty—silver hair, expensive coat, immaculate gloves.
Gabriel had loved him once.
After Luca died, Victor had practically raised him.
That betrayal hurt in ways Gabriel refused to examine.
“Where is she?”
Victor smiled.
“You always were impatient.”
“Hazel.”
“She’s alive.”
Gabriel removed the drive.
Victor’s eyes moved toward it.
“First I see her.”
Victor gestured.
Two men dragged Hazel into the light.
Gabriel’s heart nearly stopped.
Her hair was loose. A bruise darkened one cheek. Her wrists were bound.
But she was standing.
Alive.
Hazel saw Gabriel.
Her expression broke.
“No.”
Victor laughed.
“She told me you wouldn’t come.”
Gabriel never took his eyes from her.
“She doesn’t know me very well.”
Hazel’s eyes filled.
“I told you not to.”
“And I’m terrible at following instructions.”
Despite everything, something almost resembling a laugh escaped her.
Victor’s smile disappeared.
“The drive.”
Gabriel held it up.
“Release her.”
“You’re negotiating from a weak position.”
“No. You are.”
Victor frowned.
Gabriel continued.
“You spent 12 years searching for this. If Hazel dies, the drive goes into the river.”
Victor raised his gun toward Hazel.
Gabriel’s pulse remained steady.
“You shoot her,” he said, “you never learn whether this is the original or a copy.”
Victor hesitated.
That was enough.
Hazel suddenly drove her heel down on her captor’s foot and twisted.
Gabriel moved.
Gunfire exploded.
Tommy’s men surged from between the containers.
Hazel dropped flat.
Gabriel fired twice, forcing Victor behind a forklift.
For 40 seconds, the dock became chaos.
Then silence.
Victor’s men surrendered or fell.
Gabriel ran toward Hazel.
He cut the restraints from her wrists.
She stared at him.
“You idiot.”
“Nice to see you too.”
“I told you not to come.”
“You also left without giving notice. We both have communication problems.”
Hazel made a strangled sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.
Then she threw her arms around him.
Gabriel froze.
Slowly, carefully, he held her.
For several seconds, the entire world disappeared.
Then Tommy shouted.
“Boss!”
Gabriel turned.
Victor had escaped.
A speedboat disappeared into the darkness beyond the pier.
Gabriel cursed.
But Hazel gripped his coat.
“Let him go.”
“He threatened your son.”
“I know.”
“He murdered your mother.”
“I know.”
“He murdered Luca.”
Hazel looked at him.
“No.”
Gabriel stopped.
“What?”
“Victor didn’t kill Luca.”
“But the letter—”
“My mother thought he did.”
Hazel’s expression changed.
“Before she died, she learned she was wrong.”
Gabriel stared.
“Who killed him?”
Hazel swallowed.
“That’s what’s on the drive.”
Back at the estate, they decrypted the files.
Financial records.
Recorded phone calls.
Photographs.
Names.
Judges.
Police officers.
Politicians.
Members of rival families.
Victor had been selling information for decades.
But the final audio recording was the one that destroyed Gabriel.
Luca’s voice filled the study.
Weak.
Breathless.
Alive.
“If Gabriel hears this, tell him Victor betrayed us, but he didn’t order the hit.”
Gabriel gripped the desk.
Luca continued.
“The order came from our father.”
Gabriel stopped breathing.
Salvatore Rossi.
Their father.
Dead for 7 years.
The man Gabriel had spent his childhood worshiping and fearing.
Luca had discovered Salvatore was quietly trafficking weapons through Rossi shipping routes and planning to frame Gabriel when federal investigators closed in.
Luca threatened to expose him.
So Salvatore ordered his own son killed.
Victor helped cover it up afterward.
Gabriel listened until the recording ended.
Then he sat motionless.
Hazel remained across the room.
Nobody spoke.
Finally Gabriel whispered:
“My father killed him.”
Hazel nodded.
“And I spent 12 years becoming exactly like him.”
“No.”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“You’ve seen what I am.”
“I have.”
“Then don’t lie to me.”
Hazel approached.
“You’re dangerous. You’re angry. You’ve done things I don’t want to know about.”
Gabriel looked away.
“But you aren’t him.”
“How can you know?”
“Because when you found Eli, you protected him before you knew what he could give you.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“That matters.”
The next morning, Hazel asked to leave.
Gabriel did not stop her.
That surprised everyone.
He arranged protection for Rebecca and Eli and gave Hazel access to a secure house.
Before she entered the SUV, Gabriel stood beside her.
“You’re free.”
Hazel looked at him.
“I always was.”
“I know that now.”
She studied his face.
“What happens to Victor?”
“I find him.”
“And then?”
Gabriel was silent.
Hazel understood.
Her expression saddened.
“Gabriel, if you become your father to avenge Luca, then your father still wins.”
The words followed Gabriel long after the SUV disappeared.
That evening Tommy entered the study.
“We located Victor.”
“Where?”
Tommy placed a photograph on the desk.
Gabriel stared at it.
Victor stood outside a federal courthouse.
Talking to 2 agents.
Tommy spoke quietly.
“He’s making a deal.”
Gabriel looked at the photograph.
Victor was not running anymore.
May you like
He was preparing to destroy the entire Rossi organization.
And he intended to take Gabriel down with it.
