Chapter 3 — I Cut My Sister Free

We reached the river terminal with the stolen phone switched off and wrapped in a metal emergency blanket from the car.

It was nearly four in the morning. The warehouse stood beyond a chain-link fence, its upper windows lit, its loading doors shut. Two men waited beneath the southern awning.

I parked behind a shuttered repair shop three blocks away.

“Leave the paper here,” I told Sophia.

She folded her brother’s note and placed it in the glove compartment.

“You think I’m following it blindly.”

“I think you’ve wanted proof he’s alive for eight months. That makes this a bad night to trust whoever handed you proof.”

She shut the compartment.

“And you heard your sister was going to die. Are you going to tell me that makes you objective?”

“No. That’s why we check the exits before we enter.”

We approached along the river side, where stacked equipment blocked the view from the road. Sophia kept close without crowding my injured shoulder.

At the fence, I stopped.

One guard carried his rifle loosely. The other held his weapon against his chest and watched the dark water.

“The one on the left was at the house,” Sophia whispered.

I recognized neither man, but both wore Costa’s company patch.

Beyond them, a low maintenance hatch sat above the tide line. A narrow walkway led to it beneath the loading deck.

The guard nearest the water turned toward us.

I pulled Sophia behind a stack of steel barriers.

His flashlight moved over the fence, paused, then continued.

“Thought I heard something,” he said.

“You’ve been hearing things all night.”

The second guard took out a cigarette.

I waited until he stepped beneath the awning. Then I moved toward the first.

Sophia caught my coat.

“Give me a weapon.”

I looked at her.

“Can you use it?”

“My old firm handled witness protection as well as investigations. I trained. I’m not claiming I’m as good as you.”

She held out her hand.

“But I can cover you.”

I gave her the spare pistol from my ankle holster.

“Stay behind me. Watch the loading door.”

We slipped through a section of fence where the lower wire had been lifted clear of the concrete. Another convenience. I noted it and kept moving.

The man watching the river heard me too late.

I caught him before he could shout and forced him down behind the barriers. His rifle struck the ground. The other guard turned toward the noise, dropping his cigarette.

He reached for his radio.

Sophia fired.

The shot sounded sharp even through the rain. The man fell beneath the awning.

For several seconds, neither of us moved.

No alarm. No movement at the loading doors.

Sophia stared at the fallen guard. Her breathing had changed.

I touched her elbow.

“Look at me.”

She did.

“Can you keep going?”

“Yes.”

I took the first guard’s radio. Its volume was low; someone was complaining about a missing patrol check on the warehouse’s north side.

We had a little time.

At the hatch, Sophia tried the handle. A chain held it from inside.

“At least this part isn’t waiting open for us,” she whispered.

I found a loose grille beside it. Behind the grille, a short ventilation shaft entered the same maintenance area.

We squeezed through one at a time. My shoulder scraped the metal, and pain traveled down my arm. Sophia caught my wrist when I slipped on the ladder inside.

I looked up at her.

She braced herself against the frame and held on until I found the next rung.

“You can thank me later,” she said.

“I hadn’t decided to thank you.”

“Then keep your objections quiet.”

We descended beneath the loading floor. Water dripped through seams overhead. A forklift rolled across the steel panels above us, hiding the sound of our steps.

I checked the radio.

“South patrol, report.”

We had less time now.

Sophia pointed east. The lower office lay beyond a service channel interrupted by a locked equipment cage. We could bypass it, but the alternate route would take us beneath the main floor.

I chose the longer way.

We reached a maintenance panel and looked through a gap.

Crates stood in rows beneath the upper walkway. Four armed men occupied the floor. A fifth stood outside a glass-fronted office beneath the stairs.

Inside, a woman sat in a chair.

Her head was bowed. Dark hair covered her face.

Lily.

I knew the small white sneakers even before she lifted her head. I had bought them after she complained that everyone in our family dressed like they expected to attend a funeral.

One of the men entered the office.

I shifted toward the panel latch.

Sophia put a hand on my arm.

“We can reach the side door if we stay below the floor.”

The man inside caught Lily’s hair and pulled her head back.

She screamed.

I opened the panel.

The nearest guard turned. I fired before he raised his rifle, then moved behind a concrete column as the warehouse erupted around us.

Glass broke overhead. A round struck the column beside my face.

Sophia emerged behind me and took cover at the next support.

“Upper walkway!” she shouted.

I looked up. A man was leaning over the rail, aiming down at my position.

Her shot forced him back before he fired.

I moved toward the office in two short advances, using the columns and stacked crates. The guard at the door dropped behind a pallet and fired across the aisle.

I could not reach him without crossing his line of sight.

“Can you see the office door?” I called.

“Yes.”

“Keep him down.”

Sophia fired into the pallet’s edge. I crossed the aisle while splinters flew, reached the stair support, and forced the guard away from the entrance.

Inside, Lily had overturned her chair. The man who had grabbed her hair was trying to drag her upright.

He reached for his gun when he saw me.

I shot him.

Lily flinched against the floor.

“Matteo?”

I locked the office door and knelt beside her.

“It’s me.”

Her wrists were bound behind the chair. I cut the ropes with the knife from my coat, checking her hands before helping her stand.

She touched my face.

“They said you were dead.”

“They were wrong.”

She was shaking. Blood stained her sleeve, and a bruise spread beneath one eye.

I held her against me for a moment, feeling her breathe.

Then Sophia entered through the side door.

Lily stiffened.

“You.”

I eased away from my sister.

“Do you know her?”

Sophia looked equally startled.

“I don’t think we’ve met.”

The overhead lights went out.

I pulled Lily behind the office desk. Sophia crouched beside the doorway.

A voice sounded through the warehouse speakers.

“You made quite an entrance, Matteo.”

Camila.

Red emergency lamps lit the floor outside. The shooting had stopped.

I looked through the broken office window.

Camila stood on the upper walkway with a pistol against a young man’s head. His hands were bound in front of him. Even at that distance, I recognized the face in Sophia’s photograph.

Thomas Hayes.

Sophia rose before I could stop her.

“Thomas!”

He lifted his head.

“Soph, stay back.”

Damian stepped into view beside Camila. Men emerged from behind the crates, more than we had counted through the panel. Two took positions at the side door. Others closed the route to the maintenance opening.

I counted weapons and looked for an angle on the walkway.

There wasn’t one that kept Thomas clear.

“Let him go,” Sophia said. “I have the phone. You can take it.”

Camila looked down at her.

“Of course you have the phone. It was left where you could find it.”

Sophia’s gun remained raised, but her free hand fell to her side.

I turned toward Lily.

“Stay behind me. When I move, you move.”

She nodded, eyes fixed on the walkway.

I stepped out from behind the desk, keeping my pistol low enough that Camila would have to guess whether I intended to use it.

“Damian. Come down here.”

He smiled.

“Still giving orders.”

“You wanted my chair. You can at least face me.”

A small metallic scrape sounded behind my shoulder.

I had left the knife on the desk after cutting Lily’s ropes.

Her hand closed around my coat.

Then the blade touched my throat.

I stopped.

“Put the gun down, Matteo.”

My sister’s voice was steady now.

I could see her reflection in the broken office glass. Her chin was raised. Her wrist did not tremble.

“Lily.”

“Please don’t make me cut you.”

Above us, Damian began to laugh.

I kept my eyes on my sister’s reflection.

“Tell me you didn’t know I was coming here.”

The knife pressed closer.

“I knew,” she said. “I helped them bring you.”