Frankie arrived at Gabriel Costa’s headquarters the following morning wearing jeans, work boots, a red leather jacket, and the expression of someone attending a funeral she hoped would become someone else’s.
Gabriel’s assistant met her in the lobby.
“Mr. Costa is waiting.”
“Of course he is.”
The elevator opened onto the top floor.
This time there was no bloodstained rug.
Frankie considered that progress.
Then she entered the conference room.
Twelve men stopped talking.
They wore expensive suits and expensive watches.
Some were older than Gabriel.
Some looked as though they had been breaking laws since before Frankie learned to read.
Every eye moved toward her.
Then toward the chair beside Gabriel.
His right side.
Frankie stopped.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
Gabriel looked up.
“Good morning.”
“You said I was attending.”
“You are.”
“You did not say you were putting me there.”
She pointed toward the chair.
One silver-haired man frowned.
“Gabriel, who is this?”
Frankie glanced at him.
“Someone who knows your trucks are being sabotaged.”
The room went dead.
Gabriel leaned back.
“Sit.”
Frankie remained standing.
“This feels theatrical.”
“It is.”
“You planned this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever is responsible needs to see you.”
That silenced her.
Gabriel looked toward the others.
“Francesca Moretti has been auditing fleet maintenance.”
“I have not.”
Gabriel ignored her.
“She discovered deliberate damage to Unit Eighty-Eight.”
A heavyset man near the end of the table stiffened almost imperceptibly.
Frankie noticed.
Gabriel did too.
Maybe.
“This room contains everyone with access to the transport schedule,” Gabriel continued. “Until further notice, every maintenance authorization goes through Francesca.”
Twelve expressions changed.
Frankie’s changed most.
“What?”
Gabriel turned calmly.
“You heard me.”
“We did not discuss that.”
“We’re discussing it now.”
A man named Salvatore Bellini laughed.
Frankie remembered him from Gabriel’s internal directory.
Director of shipping.
Fifty-two.
Former union organizer.
Three arrests, no convictions.
“You’re putting a garage girl over transportation?”
Frankie looked at him.
“Garage woman.”
Salvatore smiled.
“Cute.”
Gabriel’s face went cold.
The smile disappeared.
Frankie noticed that too.
“She has authority,” Gabriel said.
Another man objected.
“She doesn’t understand our business.”
Frankie leaned forward.
“I understand one of your trucks was deliberately prepared to kill its driver.”
Nobody answered.
She continued.
“I understand maintenance logs were altered after the repair. I understand two invoices contain identification numbers belonging to parts that were never installed. And I understand somebody authorized forty-seven thousand dollars of purchases through a supplier that hasn’t legally existed for fourteen months.”
That got them.
Gabriel looked at her.
“You didn’t mention the supplier.”
“I discovered it at two this morning.”
“You should sleep.”
“So should dictators.”
A younger man coughed to hide a laugh.
Gabriel’s mouth twitched.
Frankie opened her notebook.
“This is what happens next. I inspect every vehicle assigned to Routes Three, Seven, and Nine. Nobody changes a schedule without my signature. Nobody installs a component unless I see the invoice.”
Salvatore leaned back.
“You’re giving orders now?”
“No. I’m preventing idiots from getting people killed.”
His face reddened.
Gabriel said nothing.
He didn’t have to.
For the next ninety minutes, Frankie questioned them.
She watched their hands.
Their eyes.
The delay before answers.
Machines made noise before failure.
Men did too.
Salvatore was angry.
A finance manager named Carlo was nervous.
Dominic was defensive about the maintenance department but not deceptive.
Then Frankie noticed Antonio Costa.
Gabriel’s cousin.
Thirty-nine.
Head of port security.
Antonio barely spoke.
He was handsome in a polished way, with Gabriel’s dark coloring but none of his weight.
When Frankie mentioned the altered supplier invoices, Antonio’s thumb stopped moving against his wedding ring.
Just once.
Then continued.
Frankie wrote nothing.
That was how she knew Gabriel noticed.
After the meeting, everybody left except her.
Gabriel stood at the windows.
“Well?”
“Salvatore hates me.”
“Salvatore hates vegetables.”
“Carlo is hiding something.”
“Yes.”
“Dominic knows his department is embarrassing.”
“Yes.”
“And your cousin.”
Gabriel slowly turned.
“What about Antonio?”
Frankie shrugged.
“Maybe nothing.”
“Francesca.”
“He stopped moving when I mentioned the supplier.”
Gabriel’s expression did not change.
“That’s your evidence?”
“No. That’s my noise.”
Gabriel crossed the room.
“Antonio and I grew up together.”
“So did Leo and I. Family doesn’t make people smart.”
“He saved my life when I was twenty-three.”
Frankie softened slightly.
“Then I hope I’m wrong.”
Gabriel studied her.
She expected anger.
Instead, he nodded.
“That’s why you’re here.”
“What?”
“To say what everybody else is too afraid to say.”
Frankie closed her notebook.
“I’m going back to the pier.”
“I’m coming.”
“Why?”
“I own it.”
“That has never stopped you from staying away before.”
He smiled.
Twenty minutes later they were riding the freight elevator toward the garage.
Frankie hated that Gabriel had changed clothes.
Black trousers.
White shirt with sleeves rolled to the forearms.
No tie.
Tattoo ink wrapped around his wrists.
She looked once.
Then deliberately looked elsewhere.
“You’re staring,” Gabriel said.
“I was evaluating your tattoos.”
“For maintenance purposes?”
“Structural concern.”
He laughed.
At the pier, Frankie worked.
Gabriel watched.
That annoyed her until she realized he was learning.
He asked questions.
Actual questions.
Why preventive maintenance mattered.
Why a tiny vibration could reveal drivetrain trouble.
Why cheap replacement parts created expensive failures.
By noon, he had grease on one cuff.
Frankie stared.
He followed her gaze.
“This shirt costs more than my first car,” he said.
“That explains why it has no character.”
He smiled.
“You like destroying expensive things.”
“No. I like improving them.”
Their eyes met.
The moment lasted too long.
Then Dominic rushed in.
“Frankie.”
His face was pale.
“Leo’s here.”
Her blood went cold.
Leo stood outside Bay Three.
Two men had him between them.
Not Gabriel’s men.
Frankie knew immediately.
One wore a gray wool coat.
The other had a scar beneath his eye.
Leo looked terrified.
“Frankie—”
The scarred man drew a pistol.
Everything changed.
Gabriel moved first.
He pulled Frankie behind an engine block.
Shots cracked through the warehouse.
Men scattered.
Gabriel’s security reacted instantly.
The attackers dragged Leo backward.
Frankie grabbed a steel wrench.
Gabriel caught her wrist.
“No.”
“That’s my brother!”
“You run toward them and I have two people to rescue.”
She hated that he was right.
One attacker fired toward the lights.
Glass shattered.
Darkness swallowed half the warehouse.
Then a vehicle screamed outside.
They were gone.
Leo with them.
Frankie tore away from Gabriel.
“You said he was protected.”
His expression became terrifyingly still.
“He was.”
“Apparently not!”
“I had two men watching him.”
“Where are they?”
Gabriel pulled out his phone.
His eyes hardened as he listened.
Then he looked at Frankie.
“Both were found unconscious.”
Her knees nearly weakened.
She grabbed the workbench.
A message arrived on Dominic’s phone.
He held it toward Gabriel.
There was a photograph.
Leo sitting in a chair.
Alive.
Bruised.
Terrified.
Below it were six words.
THE GIRL STOPS LOOKING OR HE DIES.
Frankie stared.
Gabriel read the message twice.
Then something changed in his face.
Not panic.
Not rage.
Something colder.
A decision.
Frankie turned on him.
“I’m finding him.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t get to lock me somewhere.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
She blinked.
Gabriel removed his watch and placed it on the workbench.
Then he rolled his sleeves higher.
“Whoever took your brother believes you’re the weak point.”
His voice became low and deadly.
“They’re about to discover their mistake.”
For the first time, Frankie didn’t argue.
Because Gabriel Costa wasn’t looking at her like an employee anymore.
He was looking at her like somebody had reached into his world and stolen something that belonged under his protection.
And although Frankie should have hated the possessiveness in that thought, what frightened her most was the truth.
Part of her felt safer because of it.
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