Chương 5 - LOCKER 314Luca knew exactly where the key belonged.
That frightened Elena more than if he hadn’t.
“Warehouse Fourteen,” he said.
“Where?”
“The old Santoro shipping yard.”
Marco looked up from the security desk.
“That place has been closed for years.”
“Not all of it.”
Luca turned the brass key between his fingers.
“My father built private storage lockers under the customs office. They were numbered in the three hundreds.”
Elena stared at him.
“You have forgotten warehouses with private lockers?”
“I didn’t say forgotten.”
“You people have a complicated relationship with normal sentences.”
Marco coughed to hide another laugh.
Luca ignored him.
By sunrise, the storm had weakened to a gray drizzle.
Matteo remained with Bianca at the villa.
Elena insisted on coming.
“If Sofia trusted me with the key, I’m seeing what it opens.”
Luca didn’t argue.
That worried her.
Warehouse Fourteen stood beside Palermo’s industrial harbor, abandoned between newer shipping terminals.
The old customs office smelled of rust and seawater.
Locker 314 sat behind a corroded steel door.
The brass key turned perfectly.
Inside was no money.
No gun.
No diamonds.
Just a red wool coat.
A wooden rosary.
A ferry ticket.
A thick envelope of photographs.
And a child’s blue mitten.
Luca picked up the mitten first.
His face changed instantly.
“Matteo wore these.”
Elena said nothing.
“He lost one that winter.”
Luca closed his eyes.
“Sofia kept the other one.”
Elena lifted the red coat.
The fabric was stiff in places.
Old blood.
There was a small tear below the shoulder blade.
She examined the wool.
Then the lining.
“Luca.”
He looked over.
“This wasn’t caused by the crash.”
“What was it?”
“A bullet.”
His eyes hardened.
“Are you certain?”
“The entry hole is in the back.”
She turned the coat.
“There’s no matching exit hole.”
“So the bullet stayed inside her.”
“Probably.”
Luca stared at the coat as if it were his wife’s body.
“The autopsy listed blunt-force trauma and internal bleeding.”
“Did you read it?”
“Vittorio handled it.”
There it was again.
Vittorio.
Every road seemed to lead back to the same man.
Marco opened the envelope.
Inside were photographs taken from a distance.
Men at the docks.
Shipping containers.
License plates.
Invoices.
A hospital supply company.
And Vittorio meeting with men Elena didn’t recognize.
Luca did.
“Calabrian traffickers.”
“Drugs?” Elena asked.
“Weapons. Narcotics. Whatever paid.”
“You worked with them?”
“No.”
Marco flipped to another photograph.
His expression changed.
“Boss.”
He handed it to Luca.
Elena saw immediately why.
Luca stood in the photograph.
Same face.
Same gray eyes.
Same unmistakable posture.
He was shaking hands with one of the Calabrian men.
The date written on the back was two weeks before Sofia died.
Elena looked at him.
“You said you didn’t work with them.”
“I didn’t.”
“That photograph says otherwise.”
“I met him once.”
“You shook his hand.”
“That doesn’t make him my partner.”
“No. The Mafia reputation does some of that work for you.”
His eyes flashed.
“You think this is amusing?”
“No.”
She pointed to the red coat.
“I think your wife was shot in the back.”
Luca looked away.
Marco kept searching.
He found manifests for medical equipment shipped through companies tied to Santa Rosalia Hospital.
Oxygen regulators.
Surgical pumps.
Emergency generators.
According to the invoices, hundreds had arrived.
According to handwritten notes in Sofia’s margin, most had never existed.
“Ghost shipments,” Elena said.
“For what?”
Luca examined the container numbers.
His jaw tightened.
“For hiding weapons.”
Marco nodded.
“And maybe drugs.”
Luca slammed the papers onto the table.
“I banned narcotics from our routes eight years ago.”
Elena stared at him.
“You say that like it deserves applause.”
“No.”
The answer surprised her.
“It doesn’t.”
He looked at the manifests.
“But if Vittorio used my ports for narcotics after I forbade it, then Sofia found more than theft.”
Marco suddenly held up the ferry ticket.
“Naples. One-way.”
The passenger names were handwritten.
Sofia Santoro.
Matteo Santoro.
No Luca.
The departure date was the night Sofia died.
Luca took the ticket.
For several seconds, he couldn’t speak.
“She was leaving me.”
Elena’s anger softened.
“You don’t know why.”
“She was taking my son.”
“You don’t know why.”
He looked at the photographs again.
Maybe now he did.
Elena reached deeper into the envelope.
One photograph remained stuck to the cardboard backing.
She pulled it loose.
Her breath caught.
It showed Luca standing inside Warehouse Fourteen with the Calabrian trafficker.
Behind them were open wooden crates.
Rifles.
Dozens of them.
On the back, Sofia had written a message.
Not notes.
Not numbers.
A sentence.
Elena read it once.
Then again.
Luca saw her expression.
“What?”
She handed him the photograph.
His wife’s handwriting was sharp and unmistakable.
If Luca lies about this meeting, trust no one. Not even him.
Luca went still.
Elena stepped away.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You were standing beside the weapons.”
“There’s an explanation.”
“That sentence has buried more women than any bullet.”
His face tightened.
“Elena—”
A metallic scrape came from the corridor.
Marco reached for his gun.
Too late.
The outer door slammed.
A chain dropped across it from the other side.
May you like
Then gasoline began pouring beneath the warehouse door.
And Luca stared at the spreading liquid as the first orange flame appeared.
