Chapter 7 - THE TRAIN TICKET
The taxi dropped us off two blocks from Pier 4.
The midnight fog rolled off the Boston harbor, wrapping the abandoned shipping containers in a thick, eerie mist.
We crept through the shadows, staying close to the rusted chain-link fences.
The main warehouse was massive.
Two black SUVs were parked outside. Six armed men patrolled the perimeter.
“How do we get inside?” I whispered.
Jack pointed toward the roof.
“There’s a rusted fire escape on the south wall. It leads to the catwalk overlooking the floor.”
We moved silently, timing our steps with the crashing of the waves against the dock.
We reached the fire escape.
Jack went up first, pulling me up behind him when the metal ladder threatened to groan under our weight.
We slipped through a broken window near the ceiling and crawled onto the grated metal catwalk.
Below us, the warehouse floor was lit by a single, harsh halogen work light.
My breath caught in my throat.
Tied to two wooden chairs in the center of the room were my mother and a young man who looked remarkably like Jack.
Marcus.
Arthur Sterling stood in front of them, checking a gold pocket watch.
He was an elegant, silver-haired man who looked like he belonged in a country club, not a mob warehouse.
“Ten minutes past midnight,” Arthur sighed. “It appears Jack doesn’t care about you as much as he claimed, Marcus.”
Marcus, bruised and bleeding from the lip, glared at him.
“Jack’s going to put a bullet in your head, Arthur.”
Arthur chuckled.
“I highly doubt that.”
I gripped the railing of the catwalk.
My mother was crying silently.
“What is the plan?” I whispered to Jack.
Jack opened his phone.
“You said earlier today that the best way to handle a crisis is to tell the truth publicly, before the company can hide it.”
I stared at him.
“Yes.”
Jack handed me his phone.
“Arthur controls the board because he controls the secrets. If the secrets aren’t secret anymore, the board will abandon him to save themselves.”
I looked at the screen.
Jack had logged into the Northbridge corporate emergency broadcast system.
It was an app designed to send mass alerts to every employee, board member, and press contact on the company payroll simultaneously.
“I took photos of the most damning pages of the ledger,” Jack said. “I uploaded them to the draft.”
My eyes widened.
“If you send this, you destroy the company. The stock will tank. The feds will raid the building tomorrow.”
“I don’t care about the company,” Jack said, looking down at his brother and my mother. “I care about them.”
Jack looked at me.
“Hit send.”
I didn’t hesitate.
I pressed the flashing red button.
Instantly, thousands of emails and text messages were dispatched across Boston.
Three seconds later, Arthur’s phone pinged loudly on the warehouse floor.
Then, the phones of the six guards pinged.
Arthur pulled his phone from his pocket, annoyed.
He looked at the screen.
I watched from the catwalk as the color completely drained from his elegant face.
“What is this?” Arthur demanded, his voice cracking.
One of the guards looked at his own phone.
“Boss,” the guard said nervously. “This is the ledger. It just went out to the Boston Globe. And the FBI tip line.”
Arthur’s calm facade shattered.
“Find them!” he screamed, looking frantically around the warehouse. “They’re here!”
“Now,” Jack whispered.
He stood up on the catwalk, raising his gun.
“Arthur!” Jack roared, his voice echoing through the cavernous space.
Arthur looked up, raising his own weapon.
Jack fired first.
He didn’t aim for Arthur.
He aimed for the heavy chain holding the halogen work light suspended above the floor.
The bullet snapped the chain.
The massive light crashed to the concrete, shattering instantly.
The warehouse was plunged into absolute darkness.
“Get down!” Arthur screamed to his men.
Gunfire erupted in the pitch black, firing blindly toward the catwalk.
Jack grabbed me, pulling me flat against the metal grating as bullets sparked against the railing above our heads.
“Stay here!” Jack yelled over the deafening noise.
Before I could grab him, Jack slipped over the edge of the catwalk.
He dropped twenty feet into the darkness below.
“Jack!” I screamed.
I heard the sickening thud of his boots hitting the concrete.
Then, silence.
I lay flat on the cold metal, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I couldn’t see anything. I could only hear the frantic shouts of Arthur’s men sweeping the floor with flashlights.
“Find him!” Arthur yelled. “Kill the woman in the chair if he doesn’t surrender!”
My blood froze.
My mother.
I couldn’t stay on the catwalk.
I felt around in the dark until my hand brushed against a heavy steel wrench left behind by a maintenance worker.
I gripped it tight.
I crawled toward the fire escape stairs leading down to the floor.
I wasn’t a mafia boss.
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I wasn’t a trained killer.
But nobody was going to shoot my mother while I hid in the dark.
