Flames were already tearing through the roof when Frankie reached Moretti Auto.
“No.”
She jumped from the SUV before it stopped.
Gabriel caught her halfway across the street.
“Let me go!”
“The roof is collapsing.”
“That’s my garage!”
Firefighters flooded the building with water.
Windows exploded.
Smoke rolled into the Chicago night.
Frankie fought Gabriel’s grip.
“My father built that!”
“I know.”
“My mother kept his invoices in there!”
“I know.”
“My tools—”
“Francesca.”
His voice broke through the panic.
She turned.
Gabriel held her shoulders.
There was soot on his white shirt from where she had grabbed him.
“Look at me.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I need to go inside.”
“No.”
“Let me go.”
“No.”
The roof over Bay Two collapsed.
A roar of sparks filled the night.
Frankie stopped fighting.
Something inside her collapsed with it.
Gabriel pulled her against his chest.
She didn’t choose to cry.
Her body simply did it.
Hard.
Ugly.
Without dignity.
She had repaired her first engine in that garage.
Her father taught her to weld there.
Her mother had kept a coffee pot running behind the office desk.
Frankie had hidden beneath a workbench when she was eight after breaking the neighbor’s window.
Leo had learned to drive in the parking lot.
After their father died, Frankie had taken a failing shop with unpaid taxes and turned it profitable one repair at a time.
Now it was burning.
Gabriel held her until the firefighters confirmed nobody had been inside.
Then Frankie stepped away.
“Arson?”
Gabriel’s security chief nodded.
“Almost certainly.”
She wiped her face.
“Antonio?”
“We don’t know.”
Gabriel looked furious.
Frankie stared at the fire.
“Yes, we do.”
She turned toward him.
“They burned the garage after Leo was rescued.”
“That doesn’t prove—”
“They’re escalating.”
Her grief transformed.
“Because we’re getting closer.”
Gabriel watched her.
“You’re done.”
Frankie stared.
“What?”
“This investigation.”
“No.”
“They kidnapped your brother. Now they burned your business.”
“You think quitting makes them forget me?”
“It removes you from the center.”
“No. It tells them pressure works.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“I will not bury you because you’re stubborn.”
“And I will not hide because you’re scared.”
His face changed.
Frankie saw immediately that she had struck something.
“Scared?”
“Yes.”
His voice became almost dangerously quiet.
“You believe I’m afraid?”
“Terrified.”
Everybody nearby became very interested in anything except them.
Frankie pointed at his chest.
“You can order two hundred men around. You can buy buildings. You can make people stop talking by walking into a room. But you can’t control this, and it scares you.”
“This?”
“Me.”
Gabriel went still.
Frankie’s own words caught up with her.
Too late.
“You’re afraid I’ll get hurt because somewhere between threatening my brother and ruining my sleep schedule, you started caring.”
Nobody moved.
Gabriel stared down at her.
Rain began falling through smoke.
Finally he said, “Get in the car.”
Frankie laughed bitterly.
“Excellent argument.”
“Please.”
That stopped her.
Gabriel Costa had said please.
Frankie got in.
They drove to his home overlooking Lake Michigan.
Not the penthouse office.
His actual house.
Quiet.
Modern.
Almost strangely warm.
Gabriel gave her a bedroom.
She refused it.
“I’m not sleeping.”
“You’ve been awake nineteen hours.”
“So have you.”
“I’m accustomed to bad decisions.”
“I noticed.”
He brought her coffee.
She drank it at his kitchen island while reviewing security footage from Moretti Auto.
At 3:14 a.m., Frankie noticed a van.
White.
No plates visible.
It passed twice before the fire.
Gabriel’s people ran traffic cameras.
At 4:02, they found it.
At 4:26, they identified the leasing company.
At 5:10, Frankie discovered the corporate payment had been authorized through Costa Harbor Security.
Antonio’s division.
Gabriel closed the laptop.
“That’s enough.”
“No.”
“It’s enough for me.”
“You need proof Antonio knew.”
“The authorization used his credentials.”
“Credentials can be stolen.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You’re defending him?”
“I’m defending evidence.”
A long silence.
Then Gabriel smiled faintly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That is absolutely something.”
“You’re sitting in my kitchen after someone burned down your life, arguing that I shouldn’t condemn a man too quickly.”
Frankie shrugged.
“I’m annoying.”
“You’re extraordinary.”
She froze.
Gabriel seemed to realize what he had said.
Neither moved.
The kitchen became very quiet.
Frankie looked away first.
“Coffee’s terrible.”
“It’s imported.”
“Then you got robbed.”
He laughed softly.
It was 5:18 in the morning when the impossible happened.
Antonio walked through the front door.
Alone.
Unarmed.
Gabriel’s guards immediately surrounded him.
Antonio lifted his hands.
“I need to speak with Gabriel.”
Frankie stood.
Gabriel did not.
“You authorized the van.”
Antonio’s face tightened.
“No.”
“Your credentials did.”
“They stole access three months ago.”
“And you never reported it?”
“I didn’t know.”
Gabriel’s expression was merciless.
Antonio looked at Frankie.
“You found the supplier accounts.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why they burned your garage.”
“Who?”
Antonio took a breath.
“Victor Salerno.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
Frankie had heard the name.
Everybody in Chicago had.
Salerno ran an old crime family on the South Side.
He had spent years avoiding open conflict with Gabriel.
Antonio continued.
“He’s been paying people inside the harbor. Shipping managers. Drivers. Customs contractors.”
“Why?”
“To move weapons through legitimate routes.”
Frankie went cold.
Gabriel spoke.
“You knew?”
“I found out six weeks ago.”
“And said nothing.”
“Because Salerno has my wife.”
Silence.
Antonio’s voice cracked.
“Natalia disappeared after leaving a restaurant six weeks ago. He sent me photographs. Told me if I warned you, they’d kill her.”
Gabriel stood.
Frankie understood suddenly.
Antonio hadn’t betrayed him.
Not willingly.
“He forced you to authorize access,” she said.
Antonio nodded.
“I tried to slow them down without making it obvious. Bad schedules. Wrong gate assignments. Then you arrived.”
He looked at Frankie.
“You found too much.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Leo?”
“Salerno ordered it. I didn’t know until afterward.”
“The garage?”
Antonio looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
Frankie wanted to hate him.
Then she imagined Leo in that chair.
A family member being used as a weapon.
She understood too much.
Gabriel approached his cousin.
“Where is Natalia?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why come here?”
“Because Salerno is moving everything tonight.”
Antonio removed a flash drive.
“He believes Frankie’s investigation has made the harbor unsafe. At midnight, he’s transferring his operation through Pier Forty-Four.”
Frankie frowned.
“The same pier?”
“That’s the point.”
Antonio looked at Gabriel.
“He intends to make it look like your organization has been trafficking everything.”
Gabriel took the drive.
“And afterward?”
Antonio’s face turned pale.
“He kills everyone who can contradict the story.”
Frankie already knew the answer before asking.
“Including you.”
Antonio nodded.
“And Natalia.”
Gabriel looked toward the windows.
The sun was beginning to rise.
Frankie watched the mafia king calculate a war.
Then Gabriel turned.
“Salerno wants Pier Forty-Four?”
His voice was calm again.
Too calm.
Frankie knew that tone now.
She almost felt sorry for Victor Salerno.
Gabriel looked at her.
“Then tonight, we give it to him.”
---