Chapter 10 — My Sister Stole His Last Move

Nothing happened.

The boat engine kept running below the bridge. Rain struck the ventilation housing. A police siren stopped somewhere beyond the loading yard.

Thomas pressed the switch again.

I waited for the roof to move beneath my feet.

It didn’t.

“Looking for this?” Lily asked.

She stood beside the open hatch, holding a black ring between two fingers.

Thomas looked down at his bare hand.

His expression changed before he could hide it.

“Give it to me.”

Lily stayed where she was.

“You showed us what it did. You shouldn’t have done that.”

I remembered her hand slipping over his during the struggle beneath the walkway. The closed fist against her chest.

“You took it when he grabbed Sophia?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I saw the reader on the control box. It looked like the ones on Father’s private cabinets. After you went upstairs, I used the ring. There was a shutoff option.”

Sophia looked toward the hatch.

“What did the display say afterward?”

“Safe. I didn’t touch anything else. I told the dispatcher there might be explosives.”

Thomas hit the transmitter against the bridge rail.

“You don’t know what you switched off.”

Lily’s fingers tightened around the ring.

“Then we’ll let somebody who does check it.”

I moved between her and the bridge.

“Back to the hatch. Stay clear of him.”

She obeyed, keeping the ring in her hand.

Thomas looked from her to Sophia.

“You planned this.”

“No,” Sophia said. “We made choices you didn’t expect.”

He stared at the useless transmitter. Then he threw it toward her.

She stepped aside. It struck the roof and skidded against the ventilation housing.

Thomas turned and ran toward the crane platform.

I followed, lowering the pistol to keep my balance. His wounded arm struck the rail as he reached the far end of the bridge.

He cried out but kept moving.

The access ladder stood beyond a low safety gate. He pushed through it and put one foot on the top rung.

“Stop,” Sophia shouted.

He looked back.

His boot slipped.

He caught the gate with his uninjured hand, but it swung under his weight. His body struck the ladder frame, and then he was falling.

Sophia reached him before I did.

She dropped her weapons on the platform and caught his wrist with both hands. Her knees hit the wet steel. Thomas’s weight dragged her toward the open gate.

I shoved my pistol into my coat and caught her around the waist.

Below us, black water surged against the landing. The boat rocked several feet away, too far beneath him to break the fall safely.

“I can’t hold him,” Sophia gasped.

I hooked one knee against the gatepost and tightened my grip on her.

“Don’t move.”

Thomas looked up at us.

The blood from his shoulder had soaked his shirt. He tried to lift that arm and failed.

“Let go,” he said.

Sophia shifted her hands, trying to keep his wrist from sliding through them.

“Give us your other arm.”

“I can’t.”

I leaned over the edge. My injured shoulder burned so fiercely that I nearly lost my hold on her coat.

Thomas saw my face.

“You don’t have to save me.”

For years, I had dealt with men who begged when they understood they were going to die. I had thought their pleading made my decision easier.

Thomas was giving me permission.

It would have been easier still.

Sophia looked back at me.

“Help me.”

I reached down.

“Lift your arm, Thomas.”

He shook his head.

“They’ll put me away forever.”

“Then you’ll be alive to face it.”

I caught the fabric beneath his injured arm and pulled. He screamed. Sophia braced her feet against the platform edge and dragged his other arm upward.

My shoulder gave a sickening pull. I thought I might faint.

I kept moving.

We got his chest over the edge. Thomas caught the steel with his elbow, and together we hauled him onto the platform.

He rolled onto his back, breathing in short, wet bursts.

Sophia collapsed beside the gate.

I kicked the weapons farther away and knelt, pressing the heel of my hand against the wound in his shoulder.

He tried to push me off.

“Stay still,” I told him.

Sophia took off the torn outer apron and folded it. I pressed it over the wound while she sat back against the rail, shaking.

“Why?” Thomas asked her.

She looked at him.

“Because I wanted you alive. That never meant you could do whatever you wanted.”

Footsteps sounded across the roof.

I looked up as armed officers emerged through the hatch. Lily stood behind them with her hands raised.

“The guns are on the platform,” I called. “He’s injured. There may be explosive devices downstairs. We reported them.”

“Hands where I can see them.”

I took my hand off Thomas’s shoulder and raised it. Sophia did the same.

An officer moved toward him while another kept his weapon trained on me.

“I have a pistol in my coat,” I said. “Another in my waistband.”

“Don’t reach for either.”

“I won’t.”

They removed both weapons. A medic took my place beside Thomas.

Across the bridge, an officer accepted the ring from Lily and spoke into his radio.

I watched my sister point toward the loading bay below us.

She was explaining what she had done. No one asked my permission to listen to her.

An officer caught my wrists and drew them behind my back.

The movement sent pain through my shoulder, but I stayed still.

“Your name?”

“Matteo Falcone.”

Recognition crossed his face.

He looked toward the warehouse, then back at me.

“You’re coming with us.”

I nodded.

Sophia stood as they led me toward the bridge.

“Matteo.”

I stopped.

She looked at the handcuffs, then at my face.

Neither of us could promise what happened next.

“Tell them everything,” she said.

“I will.”

By dawn, Thomas was alive in a guarded hospital room. Camila had been freed from the wreckage, treated, and placed under arrest. Damian had left the warehouse beneath a white sheet.

I learned those things in an emergency room with an officer outside the curtain.

Lily came in long enough to tell me she was safe.

Then an investigator entered with a notebook and asked about the files.

I could have waited for someone to tell me which facts were least damaging. I could have begun with the people who had tried to kill me.

Instead, I gave him the name of my lawyer and asked for a recorded interview with counsel present.

“About Thomas Hayes?” he asked.

“About all of it.”

He looked at me for a moment, then closed the notebook.

For the first time in my life, I had no order to give him.