Chapter 4 - The Rat in the Walls
The line went dead with a soft click.
Tessa stared at the black screen of her phone, her hands shaking violently.
Mateo immediately ordered the driver to change course toward the southern shipping yards.
"No," Tessa protested, finding her voice. "It's a trap."
"Of course it is a trap," Mateo snapped, checking his magazine again.
"Then why are we driving into it?"
"Because if Giancarlo Romano has my father, I will burn Chicago to the ground to get him back."
Tessa clutched the gold locket tightly in her palm.
"You don't even know if it was Giancarlo on the phone."
"I know the voice of the man who tried to kill me when I was a child."
The SUV tore through the industrial district, weaving between towering stacks of shipping containers.
The rain had turned into a torrential downpour, blinding the windshield.
Mateo pulled a spare handgun from a compartment under the seat and pressed it into Tessa's hands.
"I don't know how to use this," she said, staring at the weapon in horror.
"Point it at anything that doesn't look like me and pull the trigger."
The vehicle screeched to a halt near Pier 44.
The docks were completely abandoned, bathed in the sickly yellow glow of sodium streetlights.
Mateo stepped out into the rain, his weapon drawn and ready.
He signaled for Tessa to stay close behind his broad shoulders.
They moved silently between the massive rusted containers.
A solitary figure stood at the edge of the pier, facing the dark water.
He was holding a black umbrella and waiting patiently.
Mateo raised his gun, aiming directly at the man's head.
"Turn around slowly," Mateo commanded.
The figure chuckled, a sound that sent ice down Tessa's spine.
He slowly rotated to face them.
It wasn't Giancarlo Romano.
Tessa gasped in shock.
It was David Mercer, the manager of Bellori.
David smiled, adjusting his glasses casually despite the gun pointed at him.
"You always were too predictable, Mateo," David sneered.
"Where is my father?" Mateo demanded, stepping closer.
David shrugged indifferently.
"Probably bleeding out in the back of a meat truck by now."
Mateo fired a warning shot that grazed David's shoulder.
David grunted in pain but didn't fall, his smile turning feral.
"You think you can intimidate me, Vitiello?"
"I think I can blow your kneecaps off and ask you again," Mateo promised.
David looked past Mateo, locking his eyes on Tessa.
"Did he tell you the truth about Elisabetta yet, Tessa?"
Tessa stepped out from behind Mateo.
"What truth?" she asked, her voice surprisingly steady.
David laughed, a harsh, ugly sound over the roaring rain.
"Your precious great-grandmother didn't run away from the Mafia."
Mateo told David to shut his mouth.
David ignored him, pointing a bloody finger at Tessa.
"She didn't run to escape the violence, little bird."
"She ran because she was the one who pulled the trigger."
Tessa felt the world tilt off its axis.
"Pulled the trigger on who?"
"On the previous head of the Romano family," David spat.
"She assassinated her own father to put Salvatore in power."
Mateo lunged forward and struck David across the jaw with his gun.
David collapsed to the wet pavement, spitting blood.
"Is it true?" Tessa whispered, looking at Mateo.
Mateo refused to meet her eyes.
Before he could answer, the blinding headlights of three black SUVs suddenly flicked on from the shadows.
May you like
They were completely surrounded.
And David was laughing on the ground.
