Chapter 16 - The Pier Where Three Generations Came to Collect Their Debts

Pier Seventeen had been abandoned long enough for Manhattan to forget it.

That made it useful.

The cold-storage building crouched beside the river behind corrugated fencing and broken floodlights. Ortiz’s tactical team entered through the old drainage tunnel Nathan had marked on his map. Port Authority units covered the river exits without lights.

Nathan and I approached from the street.

He carried the decoy ledger beneath his jacket.

I carried nothing.

That was Ortiz’s condition.

For twenty years, I had entered dangerous rooms armed.

Walking in without a gun felt less like courage than nakedness.

A security camera above the loading door turned toward us.

A speaker crackled.

“Come in.”

Matteo’s voice.

Inside, emergency lamps lit a corridor lined with rusted rails. The air smelled of salt, mold, and old refrigeration.

Nathan whispered, “He used to bring me here.”

“For what?”

“To teach me how not to ask questions.”

The corridor opened into a loading chamber.

Enzo sat tied to a metal chair beneath a hanging lamp.

Blood had dried along his temple. One eye was swollen shut.

Two armed men stood behind him.

Matteo stood ten feet away.

He was sixty-seven.

Thinner than Enzo.

Same silver hair, same dark eyes, but none of Enzo’s practiced warmth.

I had seen photographs of the younger Bellandi brother. Time had altered him, not enough.

“Twelve years dead suits you,” I said.

Matteo smiled.

“Death is excellent for taxes.”

Nathan stepped beside me.

Matteo’s smile faded.

“You grew old.”

“So did your mistakes.”

Enzo lifted his head.

“Ethan.”

Matteo laughed.

“Listen to him. Twenty-two years calling you Luca, and suddenly he discovers respect for your mother’s choice.”

I looked at Enzo.

“Can you walk?”

“If you untie me.”

One of the guards struck the chair.

Enzo did not flinch.

Matteo extended his hand.

“The ledger.”

Nathan removed the black book.

“Enzo first.”

“No.”

“Then we leave.”

The nearest guard raised his weapon.

Nathan did not move.

Matteo studied him.

“You were always better at pretending courage than possessing it.”

“And you were always better at killing children than facing adults.”

The chamber went silent.

Matteo’s smile disappeared.

I said, “You ordered the fire.”

“I corrected your father’s betrayal.”

“There were children inside.”

“There were witnesses inside.”

Enzo’s voice came rough.

“Stop talking.”

Matteo looked at his brother.

“You still think silence can save him?”

“No. I think you enjoy hearing yourself become evidence.”

For the first time, Matteo glanced toward the ceiling.

He suspected recording devices.

Good.

Ortiz had placed transmitters in the seams of my jacket, but Matteo’s statement alone would not solve a twenty-two-year-old case. We needed him alive. We needed the financial network.

Nathan held up the book.

“Case Seven.”

Matteo’s attention returned.

“Put it on the floor.”

Nathan did.

“Kick it.”

The ledger slid across concrete.

One guard retrieved it and handed it to Matteo.

He opened to the first copied page.

Then the second.

His breathing changed.

For several seconds, he believed.

That was all Nathan had promised.

Matteo reached the middle.

Stopped.

His thumb rubbed the paper.

“No watermark.”

The first gunshot hit before the sentence finished.

Not from Nathan.

Not from me.

From the river tunnel.

A tactical officer fired after one of Matteo’s guards swung his weapon toward Enzo.

The room exploded into movement.

I dropped.

Nathan shoved me behind a steel pallet.

Another shot cracked.

Nathan jerked.

Blood spread across his shoulder.

I caught him before he fell.

“Stay down.”

“Excellent advice.”

Ortiz’s team flooded the chamber.

One guard surrendered.

The other ran toward the river passage.

Matteo grabbed Enzo’s chair and put a pistol beneath his jaw.

“Back!”

Everyone froze.

Matteo dragged Enzo toward a side door.

Enzo’s good eye found mine.

He shook his head once.

Do not trade.

Do not rush.

Matteo disappeared through the door with him.

Ortiz reached us.

“Medical is coming.”

Nathan pressed his hand to his shoulder.

“Through-and-through.”

“You a doctor?”

“I’ve been shot before.”

Ortiz pointed two officers toward the side corridor.

A port radio on her vest crackled.

“River unit reports movement. Small launch departing east berth.”

Matteo had another exit.

We ran to the dock.

A black utility boat cut across the dark river.

Matteo stood near the stern.

Enzo was no longer with him.

For one terrible second, I thought he had thrown him overboard.

Then a shout came from beneath the pier.

“Here!”

Officers found Enzo on a maintenance platform, wrists still bound. Matteo had abandoned him to move faster.

Alive.

The police boats accelerated.

The utility launch swerved toward a restricted shipping lane.

Then another vessel appeared from beneath the Brooklyn side.

A Port Authority patrol boat.

Instead of intercepting Matteo, it moved between him and Ortiz’s units.

Ortiz stared.

“What the hell are they doing?”

Nathan, pale beside me, gave a humorless laugh.

“Case Seven.”

A corrupt officer.

Twenty-two years later, Matteo’s protection network was still functioning.

The patrol boat blocked pursuit just long enough.

Matteo’s launch vanished into the river traffic.

Ortiz began shouting into her radio.

I looked at Enzo being helped up from below.

Then at Nathan’s blood on my hands.

We had recovered one brother.

The other had escaped.

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And he had just proved something more important than his confession.

Case Seven was still current.