Chapter 4 - The Uncle Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Isabella wanted to leave immediately.
Alejandro refused.
They argued for eleven minutes inside an empty classroom while dawn slowly turned the windows gray.
“That is my uncle.”
“It may be.”
“You think the photograph is fake?”
“I think everything sent by a traitor should be treated as a trap.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“Well, congratulations.”
“Isabella.”
“He raised me.”
“I know.”
“No, you know facts from a file. You do not know what it means.”
Alejandro’s expression hardened.
“Then tell me.”
She stared at him.
“He was there when I had pneumonia at nine. He sat next to my bed for three nights because I was afraid to sleep. He learned how to braid my hair badly after my mother died because I refused to let anyone else touch it. He worked extra shifts so I could go to college. He is the reason I am still in nursing school when every bill says I should have quit.”
Her voice broke.
“So if there is even a one-percent chance he is alive, I am going.”
Alejandro said nothing.
Then he nodded once.
“Fine.”
She blinked.
“Fine?”
“You go.”
Suspicion replaced relief.
“What’s the catch?”
“You wear a tracker.”
“No.”
“Then you don’t go.”
“That was fast.”
“You also wear a wire.”
“Alejandro.”
“And I will be close enough to intervene.”
“The message said alone.”
“You will appear alone.”
She studied him.
“You planned this before we finished arguing.”
“Yes.”
“That is infuriating.”
“I’m aware.”
Two hours later, Isabella walked toward Pier 42 with rain misting over the river.
No visible guards.
No Alejandro.
Only warehouses, cargo cranes, and gulls crying above gray water.
A tiny transmitter sat beneath the collar of her jacket.
She hated it.
But not enough to remove it.
At the end of the pier, Marco Bellini waited beside a dark sedan.
He was younger than Isabella expected.
Maybe thirty-five.
Expensive coat.
Tired face.
A gun visible beneath his arm.
“You came.”
“Where’s Thomas?”
“Get in.”
“No.”
Marco smiled without humor.
“You’re exactly like he said.”
“Where is he?”
“Alive.”
“Prove it.”
Marco opened the rear door.
Thomas lay across the seat.
Hands tied.
Face bruised.
But alive.
“Uncle Tommy.”
His eyes opened.
“Bella?”
She lunged toward him.
Marco caught her arm.
“Not yet.”
“Let go of me.”
“You give me the card.”
She froze.
“What card?”
“Don’t.”
His hand tightened.
“Thomas hid evidence. Mercer thinks Romano has it now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Marco looked toward the warehouses.
“You’re wearing a wire.”
Her heart stopped.
He reached toward her collar.
Then a shot cracked across the pier.
Marco jerked backward.
The gun flew from his hand.
Alejandro appeared behind a cargo barrier with two men.
“Move away from her.”
Marco pressed a hand to his shoulder.
“You son of a—”
“Open the car.”
Marco laughed.
“If I die, Mercer kills all of us.”
Alejandro approached.
“You’re already dead to him.”
Something changed in Marco’s face.
Fear.
Thomas struggled upright.
“He’s right.”
Marco looked at him.
Thomas coughed.
“Mercer never intended to let you leave.”
Isabella opened the rear door and cut Thomas’s restraints with a small blade Alejandro had given her.
She hugged him so hard he groaned.
“Ribs,” he whispered.
“Sorry.”
“Worth it.”
She pulled back.
“You let me think you were dead.”
His face filled with shame.
“I’m sorry.”
“Later.”
Marco sank against the car.
Blood spread across his coat.
Isabella’s nursing instincts took over.
“Pressure.”
He stared at her.
“You’re helping me?”
“You can betray people after I stop the bleeding.”
She pressed gauze against the wound.
Alejandro watched.
Marco laughed weakly.
“That’s why Thomas said she’d be the one.”
“To do what?” Isabella asked.
“Make me want to survive.”
Within minutes, they moved to an abandoned maintenance building controlled by Alejandro’s men.
Thomas received fluids and bandaging.
Marco sat handcuffed to a chair, shoulder wrapped.
Then the truth came out.
Mercer had staged Thomas’s death using another body and falsified police records.
Why?
Because Thomas had already transferred the evidence.
Mercer wanted him alive long enough to reveal where.
When Thomas refused, Marco was ordered to use Isabella.
“I was supposed to trade him for the card,” Marco admitted.
“And then?” Isabella asked.
Marco looked away.
“Kill both of you.”
Alejandro’s face turned deadly.
“Who gave the order?”
“Mercer.”
“Petrov?”
“Agreed to it.”
Thomas leaned back against the wall.
“The two of them are partners until the shipment clears.”
“Then Mercer arrests Petrov,” Alejandro said.
Marco nodded.
“And blames you.”
Alejandro paced once.
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Warehouse Seventeen?”
“That’s only the visible location.”
Isabella frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Marco looked at her.
“There are two shipments.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“I knew it.”
“The first one is weapons. Enough to guarantee headlines.”
“And the second?” Alejandro asked.
Marco swallowed.
“Medical isotopes.”
Isabella stared.
“Radioactive material?”
“Industrial and medical grade. Stolen overseas. High value.”
Thomas swore.
Marco continued.
“Petrov is selling to a buyer who plans to weaponize part of it.”
The room went silent.
Isabella felt sick.
“Where?”
“Not Warehouse Seventeen.”
“Where?” Alejandro repeated.
Marco hesitated.
Then looked at Isabella.
“Under the Grandeville Hotel.”
Her mind returned to the gala.
The ballroom.
The terrace.
The men whispering.
“The gala was part of it.”
Marco nodded.
“Petrov used the event to meet the buyer.”
Thomas looked at Alejandro.
“The hotel sits over an old freight access tunnel.”
Alejandro’s eyes narrowed.
“Closed in the nineties.”
“Not completely.”
Isabella remembered the basement loading level where they had escaped.
A strange steel door near the far wall.
No sign.
No handle.
She looked at Alejandro.
“I saw it.”
“What?”
“A door in the hotel basement.”
Thomas straightened.
Marco nodded.
“That’s the access.”
Alejandro pulled out his phone.
“No police.”
“Agreed,” Thomas said. “Mercer owns too many.”
“No federal.”
“Same problem.”
Isabella looked between them.
“Then who stops it?”
Alejandro looked at her.
“We do.”
That afternoon, while Thomas slept, Isabella found Alejandro alone outside the maintenance building.
Rain had stopped.
The river looked black beneath the clouds.
“You knew Thomas might be alive?”
“No.”
“Did you believe he was dead?”
“Yes.”
She studied him.
“Why did you look guilty when you told me?”
His jaw tightened.
“Because I was supposed to have men on him yesterday.”
“What happened?”
“Marco changed the schedule.”
Isabella understood.
“You blamed yourself.”
“I still do.”
“You didn’t shoot him.”
“No.”
“But you think failing to prevent something makes it yours.”
He looked at her.
“You do the same thing.”
“What?”
“With your tuition. Your jobs. Your uncle. Your entire life.”
She almost laughed.
“You’ve been reading the creepy file again.”
“I didn’t need the file.”
The words landed differently.
For the first time, Isabella noticed how close they were standing.
Alejandro looked away first.
“Go inside.”
“Why?”
“Because this is complicated enough.”
May you like
She understood exactly what he meant.
And for reasons she did not want to examine, that frightened her more than the guns.
