Chapter 14 - The Bargain at Sea

Benny called me at 2:17 in the afternoon.

Unknown number.

Price traced it before I answered.

“Mara.”

His voice sounded tired.

“Where are you?”

“On a boat.”

“I figured that part out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that and tell me what you are doing.”

A pause.

“Finishing a bad hand.”

I closed my eyes.

“Benny, is Silas with you?”

Another voice answered.

“Yes.”

Silas Kane.

The room around me went silent.

Price motioned for me to keep talking.

“Put Benny back on.”

Silas laughed softly. “You sound like Miguel.”

“You threatened my father with my life.”

“He made poor choices.”

“He made one excellent choice.”

“What was that?”

“He did not become you.”

Dante looked at me, then toward the trace monitor.

Silas’s voice cooled.

“Come to Pier 62 at six. Alone. Bring the copies from Benny’s box.”

“No.”

Price’s eyes widened slightly.

Silas paused. “No?”

“You want the tapes, you bring Benny and the real ledger.”

“You are not in a position to negotiate.”

“I am the only person who knows where all the copies are.”

That was a lie.

A clean one.

I heard my father in it.

Silas was quiet for several seconds.

“Six o’clock,” he said.

The line ended.

Price immediately started issuing orders.

Dante said, “She is not going.”

Price looked at him. “She is.”

He turned on her. “Absolutely not.”

I almost laughed at the familiar word.

Price continued. “We control the pier. We place surveillance. Mara wears a wire. Silas believes he is dictating terms.”

“He will see the trap.”

“Probably.”

“Then why send her?”

“Because if we do nothing, Benny disappears and so does the ledger.”

Dante looked at me.

I said, “I am going.”

His expression hardened.

“Do not make this about choice.”

“It is exactly about choice.”

“No. It is about a man who murdered your father trying to pull you into range.”

“And the only reason we have his voice on tape is because my father walked into range too.”

“That is not an argument for repeating it.”

I lowered my voice. “Dante, I am scared.”

That stopped him.

“I am not pretending this is brave or smart or easy. I am scared enough that my hands have been cold since he called. But Benny went onto that boat because he thinks he owes my father something. I am not leaving him there.”

Dante looked away.

Then back.

“If this happens, you follow Price’s instructions exactly.”

I nodded.

“Exactly.”

“Yes.”

“You do not improvise.”

I hesitated.

His eyes narrowed.

“Fine. I will try very hard not to improvise.”

“That is not comforting.”

At five-fifty, I stood on Pier 62 under a hooded raincoat with a transmitter taped beneath my shirt.

The waterfront wind cut through everything.

A black SUV waited one block away. Price’s agents were hidden in nearby buildings. Dante and Gabriel were in a command vehicle despite Price’s objections.

At six exactly, a small launch approached the pier.

Benny stood at the bow.

Silas stood behind him.

No visible weapon.

The boat tied up.

Silas stepped onto the pier first.

He looked older in person than in photographs, but not weaker.

“Mara Reyes.”

“Silas Kane.”

His eyes studied my face.

“You really do look like him.”

“You keep saying that like you expect it to scare me.”

“No. I expect it to make me nostalgic.”

Benny stepped onto the pier carrying the metal cashbox.

I wanted to run to him.

I did not.

“Ledger,” I said.

Silas smiled.

“Copies first.”

I held up a flash drive.

“This has everything.”

It did not. Price had loaded it with duplicated evidence and tracking software.

Silas looked at Benny.

Benny nodded once.

Then Silas reached inside his coat.

Every agent in the area must have tightened a trigger finger.

He removed a blue leather passport wallet.

Inside was a tiny encrypted drive.

“The ledger,” he said.

Benny spoke quietly. “Mara, do not give him the drive.”

Silas’s smile vanished.

He turned toward Benny.

That was the moment Benny moved.

He shoved the cashbox into Silas’s chest.

“Now!” he shouted.

Agents flooded the pier.

Silas jumped backward onto the launch.

A second man rose from the cabin with a weapon.

Shots cracked.

Benny fell.

I screamed his name.

Price tackled me behind a concrete barrier.

The launch engine roared.

Through the chaos I saw Silas throw the blue wallet into the water.

Then the boat tore away from the pier.

Dante’s men moved too late to block it.

I crawled to Benny.

Blood spread across his shirt.

He grabbed my hand.

“I cheated,” he whispered.

“What?”

“The ledger.”

His lips trembled into a smile.

“Never win at cards, kid.”

His other hand opened.

Inside his palm was the tiny encrypted drive.

While paramedics worked on Benny, I saw Dante at the end of the pier staring after Silas’s boat. Every instinct in him seemed to demand pursuit. He had cars, men, access to faster boats. He could have turned the harbor into a private war.

Instead he looked at Price. “Can your Coast Guard contacts track him?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it.”

Gabriel heard him and exhaled. “Antonio would have chased.”

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Dante looked at his brother. “Maybe that is why Silas always knew how to move us.”

That choice mattered. Silas escaped the pier, but no innocent dockworker got caught between two private armies. For once, restraint was not weakness. It was strategy.