Chapter 10 - The Federal Agent

Agent Naomi Price arrived in twenty-eight minutes.

She came alone in a gray government sedan, which somehow looked more suspicious than Dante’s convoy.

She was in her early forties, dark hair pulled back, rain on the shoulders of her coat. She showed credentials to Sofia first, then to me.

“Homeland Security Investigations,” she said. “Human trafficking and transnational crime.”

I looked at Gabriel. “You have been working with her?”

“For a year.”

Dante’s stare could have cut steel.

“A year.”

Gabriel nodded.

“You could have told me.”

“No. I could not.”

“Could not or would not?”

Price stepped between the question and the answer.

“If Mr. Kane had disclosed the operation to you, we would have terminated his cooperation.”

Dante looked at her. “You used my family as bait.”

“We used a willing source to investigate an organized trafficking network.”

“His father.”

“Yes.”

I stepped forward. “Do you have evidence Silas killed Miguel Reyes?”

Price’s professional expression shifted.

“We have allegations.”

“That means no.”

“It means homicide evidence from twelve years ago requires corroboration.”

I held up the bag from Mercer’s cabinet. “We found current shipping labels.”

Sofia handed Price copies of the old photographs from Benny’s box.

Price studied the one showing Mercer taking an envelope.

“This helps.”

“Helps?” I said. “He murdered my father.”

“We still need proof admissible in court.”

Dante spoke. “And the shipment tonight?”

Price looked at her watch. “My team is moving on Bay 6.”

“We are coming.”

“No.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed. “I am getting tired of that word.”

I folded my arms. “Now you know how it feels.”

Price ignored us both. “A federal operation is not a family outing. If you interfere, I can arrest you.”

Dante smiled without warmth. “For standing near a warehouse?”

“For any number of things, Mr. Moretti.”

The room chilled.

He nodded once. “At least we understand each other.”

Price turned to Gabriel. “You were not supposed to expose yourself tonight.”

“I did not have a choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

“Mercer cornered Mara.”

Price looked at me.

“Did he threaten you?”

“He talked about my father. He knew the cleaning schedule. He had a jammer hidden in the office.”

“Anything else?”

“He said Silas knows everything Gabriel does.”

Gabriel’s face tightened.

Price went very still.

“That is a problem.”

“You think your investigation is compromised?” Sofia asked.

“I think we assume it is.”

Her phone rang.

She answered, listened, then stepped away.

Dante moved beside me.

“You should go back to the safe apartment.”

“No.”

He lowered his voice. “This is not about controlling you.”

“What is it about?”

“The possibility that the person who ordered your father’s death now knows you are digging.”

“He already sent men to my storage unit.”

“That is my point.”

“And hiding did not stop them from burning Benny’s bar.”

His jaw worked.

I looked at him. “You keep treating safety like a room you can lock me inside.”

“And you keep treating danger like proof you are free.”

That landed.

I looked away.

He spoke more quietly. “I am not asking you to stop. I am asking you to live long enough to finish.”

Before I could answer, Price came back.

“Bay 6 is empty.”

Gabriel stared. “Impossible.”

“My team arrived ten minutes early. No trucks. No containers. No people.”

Sofia frowned. “Then the schedule was false.”

“Or changed after the tower fire.”

Price looked at Gabriel.

“Who had access to the schedule you photographed?”

“My father. Mercer. Operations controller.”

“Name?”

“Elias Voss.”

Dante swore under his breath.

I looked at him. “You know him too?”

“He runs one of my port terminals.”

Price’s gaze sharpened. “Moretti terminal?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“Pier 91.”

Gabriel went pale.

“The code.”

“What?” I asked.

He grabbed Sofia’s tablet and pulled up the shipping labels.

In the lower corner was a four-digit handling number: 3191.

“Thirty-one is Rainer’s internal cargo category,” Gabriel said. “Ninety-one is destination.”

Dante was already reaching for his phone.

Price grabbed his wrist.

“Do not call your terminal.”

He stared at her hand until she released him.

“If Voss is involved,” she continued, “any warning sends them running.”

Dante’s voice dropped. “That terminal has eighty of my employees on night shift.”

“Then we move carefully.”

Sofia said, “There is one more problem.”

She rotated the tablet.

A live security feed from Pier 91 showed the main gate.

A convoy of refrigerated trucks had just entered.

Price went pale.

“How did you get that feed?”

Dante answered without looking at her.

“It is my terminal.”

On the screen, one truck stopped beneath a light.

The rear door opened for two seconds.

Inside, behind stacked equipment crates, a human hand reached through the darkness.

Then the door slammed shut.

Price did not let the live image of the hand disappear into abstraction. She froze the frame and enlarged it. A hospital bracelet circled the wrist. On it was a number, not a name.

“That is how they strip identity,” she said. “Numbers travel easier than people.”

Dante looked sick. “Not through my terminal again.”

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Price met his eyes. “Then help us make sure of it.”

For the first time since she arrived, he did not argue with an order. He handed Sofia his master access token, giving the federal team live control over every gate, camera, and manifest system at Pier 91. It was the first piece of his empire he surrendered voluntarily, and none of us knew yet how many more would follow.