Chapter 4 - THE MAN AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRSThe first gunshot shattered the bulb above the staircase.
Darkness swallowed the Foundry basement.
Marco shoved Luca behind the safe.
“Stay down.”
Luca hated the instruction.
He obeyed anyway.
Standing for thirty seconds was a miracle.
Standing during a gunfight would be stupidity.
Salazar crawled behind a steel workbench.
Marco switched off the remaining basement light.
Footsteps descended.
Slow.
Careful.
Whoever had come knew Luca was trapped.
A voice called from above.
“Mr. Costello.”
Luca recognized it.
Elias Grant.
One of his own security captains.
Marco whispered a curse.
Luca stayed silent.
Elias continued.
“Mr. Dominic only wants the papers.”
Luca looked at Marco.
“How many?”
Marco held up four fingers.
Maybe five.
Luca whispered, “You trained them?”
“Yes.”
“Then this is embarrassing.”
Marco almost smiled.
The first man reached the bottom.
Marco fired once.
The man dropped.
Chaos followed.
Gunfire cracked through the stone chamber.
Luca pressed against the safe while sparks jumped from metal shelves.
Salazar crawled toward him.
“I’m not dying in a basement.”
Luca looked at him.
“Your optimism is inspiring.”
A bullet struck the safe.
Salazar flinched.
Marco shouted.
A man screamed.
Then silence.
Too sudden.
Luca knew the pattern.
Reloading.
Positioning.
Waiting.
He looked toward the ancient electrical panel.
An idea.
“Salazar.”
“What?”
“Can you run?”
The doctor stared.
“Yes.”
“Show-off.”
Luca pointed toward the panel.
“When I tell you, throw the main breaker.”
“What happens?”
“Hopefully something useful.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Luca remembered the Foundry from childhood.
His father once showed him emergency blast shutters installed during the 1970s.
If power failed, counterweights automatically closed them.
Including one above the staircase.
Luca waited.
A shadow moved.
“Now.”
Salazar hit the breaker.
The building went black.
A violent crash shook the staircase.
The blast shutter dropped.
Someone yelled from above.
One attacker trapped below.
Marco tackled him.
Thirty seconds later, it was over.
Elias Grant lay on the floor with Marco’s gun against his head.
Luca wheeled toward him.
“Elias.”
The man looked away.
“You’ve worked for me nine years.”
No answer.
“I paid for your mother’s surgery.”
Elias swallowed.
“I know.”
“I sent your daughter to college.”
“I know.”
“And you came here to kill me.”
“No.”
Luca looked at the dead attacker.
“Your negotiating style is confusing.”
“Dominic said no one had to die.”
Marco laughed.
“He sent five armed men into a basement.”
Elias looked at Luca.
“He said you found something that belonged to him.”
“My father’s letter?”
“I don’t know.”
Luca leaned closer.
“Then what?”
Elias hesitated.
Marco pressed the gun harder.
“A drive.”
“What drive?”
“Something hidden here.”
Luca looked toward the safe.
No drive.
Only papers.
Unless—
He examined the pistol his father left.
Old Beretta.
He removed the magazine.
Nothing.
Then the grip.
A tiny flash drive dropped into his palm.
Marco stared.
“Boss.”
Luca smiled without humor.
“Father always did enjoy theater.”
They opened it on Salazar’s laptop.
One folder.
GABRIEL.
Luca’s heart stopped.
Video files.
Audio.
Medical documents.
His brother had been investigating Dominic.
Gabriel had secretly recorded meetings.
In one audio file, Dominic spoke with Rebecca Crane.
Rebecca: “If Luca recovers, Antonio gives him full voting control.”
Dominic: “He won’t recover.”
Rebecca: “You can’t know that.”
Dominic: “Victor will make sure.”
Salazar covered his face.
Luca stared at him.
“You were part of the plan from the beginning.”
“No.”
The doctor shook his head violently.
“No. I didn’t know what they had done until afterward.”
The audio continued.
Rebecca: “And Gabriel?”
Dominic: “He knows too much.”
Luca closed his eyes.
His brother.
He remembered Gabriel visiting him in the hospital.
Holding his hand.
Telling him everything would be okay.
Then leaving.
Then dying on a rain-slick road.
Only now Luca understood.
Gabriel knew Luca had been poisoned.
He tried to save him.
And died for it.
Marco whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Luca said nothing.
Another file showed toxicology results from Gabriel’s autopsy.
Suppressed.
Gabriel had sedatives in his blood at levels high enough to impair driving.
Not an accident.
Murder.
The final file was a video.
Gabriel speaking directly to the camera.
He looked thirty-four.
Healthy.
Alive.
“Luca, if you see this, Dad and I failed.”
Luca’s breathing became uneven.
Gabriel continued.
“Dominic thinks this is about money.”
He shook his head.
“It isn’t.”
Luca leaned closer.
“He needs you physically dependent.”
Why?
Gabriel answered.
“Because Dad found proof Dominic had been using Costello shipping routes without authorization.”
Marco frowned.
“For what?”
The video continued.
“Weapons, narcotics, people. Things Dad swore we were out of.”
Luca felt sick.
For years, he had transformed the Costello empire into legitimate businesses.
Construction.
Ports.
Hotels.
Shipping.
If Dominic secretly used those routes…
Gabriel lowered his voice.
“He put your authorization on documents.”
Luca froze.
“He’s building crimes in your name.”
Marco swore.
Luca understood.
A disabled Luca.
Medicated.
Dependent.
Signing stacks of documents brought to his office.
Trusting lawyers.
Trusting Dominic.
Trusting Rebecca.
He had not merely been immobilized.
He had been turned into a shield.
Gabriel continued.
“If federal investigators ever get close, Dominic plans to make you the architect of everything.”
The video ended.
Luca stared at the black screen.
Twelve years.
Not just stolen movement.
Stolen identity.
They had been constructing his prison long before anyone placed him in a cell.
Elias began crying.
Luca looked at him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You work for Dominic.”
“He paid me to report on your movements.”
“My movements.”
Luca almost laughed at the cruelty of the phrase.
“What else?”
Elias swallowed.
“He wanted to know if the girl noticed anything.”
Luca’s face changed.
“Maya?”
“Yes.”
Marco grabbed him.
“What did you tell him?”
“That she thought Mr. Costello’s leg moved.”
Luca’s blood turned cold.
“That call came from you.”
Elias nodded.
Luca looked at Marco.
“Call the mansion.”
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Luca stood so quickly pain exploded through his knees.
Salazar caught him.
“Maya.”
Marco tried Elena.
Voicemail.
Security.
No response.
Luca’s face became stone.
“Open the shutter.”
Marco hesitated.
“There may be more men.”
“Open it.”
They raised the emergency gate.
No attackers waited.
Outside, three vehicles were gone.
Marco’s phone finally rang.
He answered.
His expression changed instantly.
“What?”
Luca demanded.
Marco lowered the phone.
“A guard from the estate.”
“Speak.”
“The safe wing was breached.”
Luca stopped breathing.
“Elena?”
“Missing.”
“Maya?”
Marco looked at him.
“Missing.”
Something violent and focused entered Luca’s mind.
He had spent twelve years cold because caring hurt.
Maya had ruined that.
She had walked into his garden.
Insulted his fountain.
Brought children to his empty baseball field.
Looked at legs every expert had dismissed and said they were sleeping.
And now someone had taken her because she saw something adults had ignored.
Luca looked at Elias.
“Where would Dominic take her?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco hit him.
Luca did not stop him.
“Where?”
“I swear!”
Another punch.
Then Elias shouted.
“Crane!”
Everyone froze.
“Rebecca Crane has a house outside Montrose. Dominic uses it for private meetings.”
Luca knew the property.
An old horse farm.
Forty minutes away.
Salazar looked at Luca’s legs.
“You cannot do this tonight.”
Luca stared.
“They took Maya because of me.”
“You can barely walk.”
“I don’t need to walk.”
He picked up the flash drive.
“I need to arrive.”
Twenty-eight minutes later, six Costello vehicles surrounded Rebecca Crane’s property.
Luca rolled from the SUV.
The farmhouse lights were on.
Front door open.
Too easy.
Marco whispered, “Trap.”
Luca nodded.
“Obviously.”
Inside they found Elena tied to a dining chair.
Alive.
Luca’s heart pounded.
“Maya?”
Elena sobbed.
“They took her.”
“Who?”
“Dominic.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at Luca.
“He asked what she saw.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“He believed you?”
“No.”
Luca noticed a laptop open on the table.
Video call.
Dominic appeared.
Silver-haired.
Elegant.
The beloved uncle Luca had trusted half his life.
“Luca.”
“Where is she?”
Dominic smiled.
“Good evening to you too.”
“Where is Maya?”
“She’s safe.”
“If she isn’t—”
“Stop threatening me.”
Dominic’s smile vanished.
“For twelve years you’ve sat in that chair thinking you were still dangerous.”
Luca’s hands tightened.
Dominic continued.
“You were dangerous because I allowed you to feel dangerous.”
Luca said nothing.
“You signed what I placed in front of you. You went where I arranged. You swallowed what Victor prescribed.”
Salazar looked sick.
Dominic smiled again.
“You became very manageable.”
Luca leaned toward the screen.
“What do you want?”
“The drive.”
“Trade.”
“Of course.”
“For Maya.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“The baseball field.”
Luca frowned.
“My house?”
“Tomorrow night. Ten.”
“Why there?”
Dominic’s eyes glinted.
“Because I want you to lose hope in the same place you found it.”
The screen went black.
Elena began crying harder.
Luca stared.
Then another video opened automatically.
Live feed.
Maya sat inside a dark room.
Not crying.
Her hands were tied.
She looked straight toward the camera.
Then she did something strange.
She lifted one foot.
Tapped three times.
Paused.
Tapped twice.
Repeated.
Luca stared.
Three.
Pause.
Two.
Again.
Maya looked toward her left.
Luca remembered her favorite game at the baseball field.
Three bases visible from home plate.
Two beyond the hedge.
No.
That wasn’t it.
Elena whispered, “She’s telling us something.”
“What?”
Maya tapped again.
Then scratched her shoe against the floor.
Metal sound.
A bell rang somewhere behind her.
Luca’s expression changed.
He knew that bell.
Everyone in the Costello family did.
St. Matthew’s Church.
Across the river from his childhood neighborhood.
Three bells before Mass.
Two after funerals.
Luca looked at Marco.
“She’s not at the farm.”
“No.”
“She’s in the old neighborhood.”
Marco understood.
“The church.”
Luca stared at the screen.
Maya smiled faintly.
Even tied to a chair, the child had found a way to tell him where she was.
Luca gripped the wheelchair arms.
“Get the cars.”
Salazar stepped forward.
“Dominic expects you at the baseball field tomorrow.”
May you like
Luca looked at him.
“Then tonight is the last night he gets what he expects.”
