Chapter 18 - Five Minutes Beneath the Hudson
Four minutes and fifty-one seconds.
That was all they had.
Dominic reached for the explosive.
Adrian stopped him.
“Pressure trigger.”
Dominic froze.
The device was connected beneath the desk through a web of wires.
Elena scanned the room.
“Can we disable it?”
“Maybe.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
Adrian grabbed the red folder.
“Leave everything else.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“My father built this archive to destroy Vittorio.”
“And it won’t matter if you’re dead.”
Four minutes.
Dominic found network cables running from the servers.
“We don’t need the machines.”
He tore open a maintenance panel.
“If the archive still has power, I can copy the central directory.”
“To what?”
He held up a secure drive.
Elena almost laughed.
“You carry that everywhere?”
“I work for you people.”
Fair.
Adrian studied the bomb.
“Sal! Evacuate the warehouse!”
His radio crackled.
Then silence.
Signal blocked.
Elena climbed halfway up the ladder and shouted.
Workers above heard her.
Evacuation began.
Three minutes.
Dominic connected the drive.
COPYING — 8%.
“You’re kidding,” Adrian said.
“These servers are ancient.”
Elena opened the red folder.
Inside were account numbers and handwritten annotations.
Vittorio’s handwriting.
Payments to ministers.
Judges.
Security officials.
Then one entry made her stop.
BERNARDO M. — PALERMO FIRE.
Amount: $4,000,000.
Authorization: V.D.
Her father had been right.
Bernardo ordered the attack.
Vittorio paid for it.
Two minutes.
Copy progress: 43%.
“We leave now,” Adrian said.
“Not yet.”
“That wasn’t a negotiation.”
He physically lifted Elena around the waist.
“Put me down!”
“No.”
Dominic laughed despite himself.
“One minute forty.”
Progress: 61%.
Adrian carried Elena toward the ladder.
She punched his shoulder.
“I swear to God—”
“You can kill me outside.”
A sharp metallic sound echoed from the door.
Someone was entering.
Adrian lowered her immediately.
Gunfire exploded.
Bullets tore through server racks.
Elena dropped behind a cabinet.
Dominic returned fire.
Three attackers entered wearing maintenance uniforms.
One fell.
Another fired toward the bomb.
“Elena!” Adrian shouted.
She rolled behind the desk.
Forty-nine seconds.
Progress: 82%.
A masked man rushed toward her.
Elena slammed the red folder into his face, grabbed his wrist, and drove his arm into the desk.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Adrian struck him from behind.
Dominic shouted.
“DONE!”
He ripped the drive free.
Twenty-nine seconds.
They sprinted for the ladder.
Adrian shoved Dominic upward first.
Elena followed.
Adrian climbed behind her.
Ten seconds.
They reached warehouse level.
“RUN!”
Workers scattered toward the outer loading yard.
Elena felt Adrian’s hand against her back.
Three.
Two.
One.
The explosion erupted below.
The warehouse floor buckled.
A blast of fire and river water tore through the freight shaft.
Adrian threw Elena down and covered her with his body.
Windows shattered.
Steel screamed.
Then silence.
Smoke rolled through the warehouse.
Elena coughed.
“Adrian?”
He didn’t answer.
Fear ripped through her.
She pushed at his shoulder.
“Adrian!”
He groaned.
“I’m reconsidering Santa Rosalia.”
She laughed and cried simultaneously.
“You idiot.”
“You punched me.”
“You kidnapped me away from evidence.”
“You’re welcome.”
Dominic crawled from behind a forklift, clutching the secure drive.
“Children.”
Elena looked at the destroyed floor.
Antonio’s physical archive was gone.
But Dominic raised the drive.
“We got eighty-seven percent.”
“Enough?”
He smiled.
“For Vittorio?”
His smile widened.
“Enough to make him wish he’d become a legitimate banker.”
Police sirens approached.
Adrian looked toward the collapsed shaft.
“No random assassin could install that device.”
Elena nodded.
Someone had access to Pier Seventeen.
Someone close.
Someone who knew exactly when Elena found the chamber.
Then Dominic’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“What happened?”
He lowered the phone.
“Isabella’s gone.”
Elena stood.
“What do you mean gone?”
“The safe house was hit twenty minutes ago.”
“Taken?”
Dominic shook his head.
“No bodies.”
Adrian’s expression darkened.
“So either Vittorio kidnapped her…”
May you like
Elena finished.
“…or Isabella was never on our side.”
