Chapter 3 - Interrogation In The Cellar
The air in the subterranean basement beneath the estate smelled of old damp stone, aged oak barrels, and copper. Two steel chairs were bolted to the reinforced concrete floor in the center of the vault. The two intruders were stripped to their tactical undergarments, their hands cuffed behind their backs with heavy-gauge police restraints. One of them was spitting blood onto the floor; the other, whose nose Hannah had flattened, was breathing through his mouth in ragged wheezes.
Marco stood in the corner, holding a pair of heavy pliers and an iron pipe, his knuckles white with anticipation. "They haven't spoken a word yet, Boss. Professionals. Russian tattoos on their forearms, but the gear is domestic."
I walked down the stone stairs, Hannah following two paces behind me. She had changed into a dark fitted sweater and pulled her brown hair back into a tight tactical ponytail. The cut on her forehead had been dressed with butterfly bandages, giving her an intense, dangerous aura that made Marco involuntarily step backward to give her space.
"Let me handle this," Hannah said softly, stepping ahead of me.
"This is my house, Mercer," I muttered, but I didn't stop her.
She walked up to the intruder with the broken nose, stopping less than six inches away. She didn't raise her fist. She didn't shout. Instead, she leaned down, reached out with two fingers, and pulled down the neckline of his tactical shirt, exposing a small circular scar near his left clavicle.
"Third Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group," Hannah said, her voice dropping into a flat, icy cadence. "Dishonorably discharged four years ago following an unsanctioned raid in Eastern Europe. You took a private security contract with a shell company registered in Delaware called Blackwood Maritime."
The man’s eyes widened in sudden, raw panic. He looked up at her face, his gaze searching her features, until a flicker of horrifying recognition struck him. "Captain... Mercer?"
"Major Mercer, actually," Hannah whispered, her voice colder than the concrete floor beneath their feet. "Before I resigned my commission from the Special Operations Intelligence Directorate."
The second man cursed under his breath, thrashing against his metal bonds. "You're dead. The contractor said you died in Poland eighteen months ago!"
"I let people believe a lot of things when I need to disappear," Hannah replied smoothly. She stepped closer, her hand resting on the side of his neck, her fingers lightly pressing against his carotid artery. "Now, you are going to tell me exactly who paid the deposit into your offshore account. Not the Delaware shell company. The real principal. Did the money come from inside the Moretti family, or did it come from the Tarasov syndicate?"
The man clenched his teeth, shaking his head. "If I talk, they'll kill my family."
Hannah leaned in until her lips brushed his ear. Whatever she whispered to him was too low for Marco or me to hear, but the effect was immediate and catastrophic. The man’s face turned an ashen shade of chalk. Sweat poured down his temples, mingling with the blood on his upper lip.
"Okay! Okay, stop!" the man choked out, his voice cracking. "It wasn't Tarasov! Tarasov doesn't have the codes to the harbor shipping manifests! It came from inside the family!"
My blood ran ice cold. "Which family member?" I roared, stepping forward and shoving the barrel of my gun directly under his chin. "Name him!"
"Sal... Salvatore Leone," the man gasped, trembling uncontrollably. "Your underboss. He said you became weak after your wife died. He said grief made you blind, and that if the twins were eliminated, you would completely lose your mind and step down from the commission. He promised us three million dollars and a clean extraction through the Port of Newark."
Salvatore. My second-in-command. A man who had stood beside me at my father’s funeral twenty years ago. A man who had sat at my dining room table during Thanksgiving and given my children Christmas presents.
"And Claire?" I demanded, my hand shaking with lethal fury. "What about my wife?"
"Sal paid a mechanic at the corporate garage to tamper with the brake lines before she left for the country house," the man sobbed, completely broken. "He wanted you broken, Moretti. He wanted you to feel helpless."
I lowered the weapon slowly. The silence in the stone cellar was deafening. Every instinct I possessed screamed for immediate, bloody vengeance. I wanted to tear Salvatore Leone apart with my bare hands.
Then I felt a cool, steady hand touch my wrist.
It was Hannah.
"Don't do it like this, Vincent," she said softly, her eyes looking straight into mine, filled with an understanding that chilled me to the bone. "If you hunt him down in anger right now, you leave your children unguarded. That is exactly what he wants you to do."
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I looked down at her small, strong hand gripping my arm. "Why are you here, Hannah? Why did you come to my family?"
She took a slow, painful breath. "Because Claire Vance wasn't just your wife. She was my sister."
