Chương 8 - THE FERRY AT MIDNIGHT
“Get Raffaele to a hospital.”
Marcus handed his uncle to two guards.
Raffaele caught his wrist.
“You board that ferry, Vescari will kill you.”
Marcus looked down.
“You taught me family comes first.”
Raffaele’s expression twisted.
“I taught you many bad things.”
Marcus looked toward the ferry.
“I’m choosing which ones to keep.”
Sarah was already pulling on a flotation vest from an emergency locker.
Marcus stared.
“No.”
She pointed at the rising ramp.
“Your men can’t get vehicles aboard now.”
“We’ll use the harbor patrol.”
“Too slow.”
“Sarah.”
“There’s a maintenance access door near the stern on this model.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve done recovery dives on two.”
He looked at her.
“You intend to swim.”
“You were more attractive unconscious.”
“This is not funny.”
“No.”
She met his eyes.
“It isn’t.”
He was afraid for her.
Not possessive.
Not commanding.
Afraid.
That difference mattered.
“You don’t owe me this,” he said.
“I’m not doing it for you.”
She looked at Paolo.
“I’m doing it because my father spent eighteen years afraid that staying silent made him a coward.”
Sarah zipped the vest.
“He was wrong.”
Marcus exhaled.
“Then we go together.”
The harbor water was brutally cold.
They entered from a pilot boat and swam toward the ferry’s stern while police units coordinated from shore.
Paolo had refused medical treatment long enough to provide the cargo-container number.
“Stubborn old man,” Sarah muttered through chattering teeth.
Marcus swam beside her.
“You like him.”
“I’m deciding.”
They reached the maintenance ladder.
Sarah opened the access hatch with a tool from her dive knife.
Inside, engine noise vibrated through metal.
They climbed onto the lower deck.
Two of Marcus’s men followed.
Container C-19 sat behind refrigerated trucks.
Sarah reached it first.
From inside came a faint sound.
Knocking.
Marcus’s face hardened.
He cut the seal.
The doors opened.
Men.
Women.
Children.
Terrified.
Cold.
Some barely conscious.
Sarah’s medical instincts took over.
“Water first. Slowly. Anybody dizzy sits down.”
A small boy clung to his mother’s coat.
He looked about five.
Sarah knelt.
“You okay?”
He shook his head.
“Cold?”
Tiny nod.
She removed her outer thermal jacket and wrapped it around him.
“What’s your name?”
“Youssef.”
“I’m Sarah.”
He pointed toward Marcus.
“Police?”
Sarah looked at Marcus.
The feared Sicilian crime boss stood frozen.
“No,” Marcus said quietly.
Then after a moment:
“But tonight I’m helping them.”
The boy accepted that.
Children had no patience for complicated reputations.
One of the rescued men told them another container was forward.
Marcus’s men called authorities.
They moved.
Then the lights died.
Emergency red lamps came on.
A voice sounded through the vehicle deck.
“Marcus Santoro.”
Marcus stopped.
The voice was older.
Calm.
Emilio Vescari.
“Your uncle always did underestimate how sentimental you are.”
Marcus motioned Sarah behind an engine housing.
She ignored him.
The voice continued.
“You could have inherited everything.”
Marcus called back.
“I did.”
“And you’re throwing it away.”
“No.”
Marcus looked toward the frightened people behind him.
“I’m finding out what it cost.”
Gunfire erupted from the forward deck.
Marcus’s men returned fire.
Sarah pulled Youssef and his mother lower.
Then she saw movement above.
An older man descended the metal stairs.
Emilio Vescari.
Seventy perhaps.
Thin.
Silver-haired.
No theatrical rage.
Just exhaustion.
He held a pistol.
“You look like Lorenzo,” he told Marcus.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You shouldn’t.”
Emilio’s gaze moved to Sarah.
“Thomas Mitchell’s daughter.”
Sarah felt cold for reasons unrelated to the water.
“You threatened my father.”
“Yes.”
“You sent men to my apartment.”
“Yes.”
“You ordered the sniper.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your surname appeared beside Marcus Santoro one day before he was supposed to die.”
He said it as if explaining accounting.
“I spent eighteen years ensuring Thomas’s story remained buried. Then his daughter pulled Marcus from the sea.”
A bitter smile.
“God has an unpleasant sense of humor.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“What happened to my mother?”
Emilio’s face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
“She would not stop.”
“Where did you take her?”
“To a farmhouse outside Trapani.”
Sarah’s heart pounded.
“How long did she live?”
“Two days.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
Two days.
Not instant.
Not accident.
Two days while he believed she had died at sea.
“She tried to bargain for you and your sister,” Emilio said.
Marcus’s eyes opened.
“What did you do?”
“I offered her exile.”
“Did she accept?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Emilio looked almost angry at the memory.
“She said if she disappeared, the network continued.”
Sarah understood.
Teresa had chosen exposure over safety.
Just like Thomas.
Emilio continued.
“She escaped.”
Marcus went still.
“What?”
“She injured one of my men and reached the coastal road.”
“Then how did she die?”
Emilio hesitated.
For the first time, certainty left his face.
“She was hit by a truck.”
Sarah stared.
Not execution.
Not murder in the farmhouse.
A desperate escape.
Emilio had caused everything that led there, but reality was messier than the legend.
“We buried her identity,” he said. “Raffaele never learned.”
Marcus’s hands shook.
“My uncle searched eleven years.”
“Yes.”
“And you let him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because guilt made him obedient.”
There it was.
Raffaele’s shame had been useful.
Emilio looked toward the open container.
“You think I enjoyed this?”
Sarah stared at him.
“Does it matter?”
“It should.”
His voice sharpened.
“After Lorenzo started shutting routes, hundreds of people were left exposed. Rivals took docks. Men lost livelihoods. Families lost protection. Politicians we owned turned against us.”
“So you kept trafficking people.”
“I kept an organization alive.”
Marcus shook his head.
“No.”
Emilio looked at him.
“What?”
“You kept yourself necessary.”
The words hit.
Emilio’s expression changed.
Marcus continued.
“My uncle did the same thing. My father did it before him. Every man in this family called control protection because admitting the truth would mean facing what he had become.”
Sarah saw Emilio’s finger tighten against the trigger.
“Marcus.”
Too late.
Emilio raised the pistol.
Raffaele’s voice rang from behind him.
“Enough.”
Everyone turned.
Raffaele stood near the ramp.
Blood-soaked bandage around his side.
Paolo beside him, furious.
“I told you hospital,” Sarah shouted.
Paolo shrugged.
“He wouldn’t stay.”
Raffaele aimed a gun at his former partner.
Emilio stared.
“You should be dead.”
“I’ve disappointed better men.”
For one long moment the two old men faced each other.
Decades of choices between them.
Emilio’s voice softened.
“We kept them alive, Raffaele.”
“No.”
Raffaele looked at Marcus.
“We kept ourselves powerful.”
Emilio fired.
Raffaele fired.
Marcus lunged.
A bullet struck a fuel line.
Alarms screamed.
Smoke poured across the deck.
Emilio disappeared behind machinery.
The ferry suddenly shuddered.
Then tilted.
Sarah looked down.
Water rushed across the lower deck.
“The hull!”
A security man shouted from the stairwell.
“Impact damage! We’re flooding!”
Marcus grabbed Sarah.
“Go with the passengers.”
“What about you?”
“Raffaele’s trapped.”
Through the smoke, she saw the older man pinned beneath a fallen steel panel.
Marcus ran toward him.
Water reached his knees.
Sarah knew what was happening faster than anyone.
That section would fill.
Fast.
“Marcus!”
He looked back.
“Get them out!”
Then another steel beam crashed down between them.
Sarah lost sight of him.
Water surged to her waist.
May you like
And somewhere beyond the smoke, Marcus Santoro shouted his uncle’s name.
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