Chapter 36 - Pier Nine
Pier Nine looked abandoned.
Roman knew better.
Too clean.
Too quiet.
Too many dark windows.
He parked beneath a dead floodlight.
Clara sat beside him.
“You’re gripping the wheel.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’ll break it.”
“I can buy another.”
“That is not emotional growth.”
Roman looked at her.
“You are making jokes while our son is being held hostage.”
“It keeps me from screaming.”
That silenced him.
Roman reached for her hand.
“I should have protected him.”
Clara squeezed his fingers.
“Do not do this now.”
“I built everything around keeping you safe.”
“And somebody still found a weakness.”
“I was the weakness.”
“No.”
She forced him to look at her.
“Love creates risk. That does not make love a mistake.”
Roman exhaled.
Then they stepped out.
Vincent waited inside Warehouse Three.
No army.
No visible weapons.
Only Vincent, Elena, four guards, and Antonio.
The boy sat at a table drawing a dinosaur.
Roman’s heart nearly stopped.
“Dad!”
Antonio jumped up.
A guard caught his shoulder.
Roman’s entire body tensed.
Vincent lifted a hand.
“Gently.”
The guard released him.
Antonio remained standing.
Roman held up the stuffed dinosaur.
“I brought Frederick.”
Antonio grinned.
Even Clara almost laughed.
Elena looked disgusted.
“How touching.”
Roman’s eyes moved to her.
“You have ten seconds to release my son.”
“You came to negotiate.”
“I came to collect him.”
Vincent stepped forward.
“The keys.”
Roman placed two encrypted drives on a crate.
“Sofia’s fragment. Elias’s fragment.”
Elena’s eyes brightened.
“And the third?”
“You have it.”
Vincent smiled.
“Not exactly.”
Roman frowned.
Vincent opened his coat and removed a small brass device.
“My father left this in a bank box.”
Clara noticed Elena staring at it.
Greed.
Not grief.
That mattered.
Vincent inserted the brass device between the two drives.
A screen activated.
Three encrypted columns appeared.
One remained locked.
“Needs biometric confirmation,” Vincent said.
Roman’s expression changed.
“Whose?”
Elena smiled.
“Antonio Duca’s bloodline.”
Roman looked toward Antonio.
“No.”
Elena shrugged.
“A drop of blood.”
“No.”
“Roman,” Vincent said, “don’t be absurd.”
Roman stepped forward.
Every guard raised a weapon.
Clara caught his arm.
Antonio looked scared.
Roman stopped.
Elena approached the boy holding a medical lancet.
Roman spoke quietly.
“If you hurt him…”
Antonio interrupted.
“Dad.”
Roman looked at his son.
“It’s like the doctor, right?”
Roman’s throat tightened.
Clara nodded gently.
“Just a finger prick.”
Antonio held out his hand bravely.
Elena pricked his finger.
One drop touched the brass sensor.
The system unlocked.
Hundreds of files appeared.
Contracts.
Photos.
Payments.
Recorded meetings.
Names.
Vincent stared.
Elena smiled.
Then everything changed.
She pulled a pistol and aimed it at her brother.
Vincent froze.
“Elena?”
“I’m sorry.”
Roman moved Antonio behind him.
Elena kept the gun trained on Vincent.
“You always thought this was about Father.”
Vincent looked genuinely shocked.
“What are you doing?”
“Protecting my husband.”
Clara understood.
“You never wanted revenge.”
Elena glanced toward her.
“I wanted control.”
She pointed at the archive.
“These files could destroy Thomas. They could destroy our children.”
Vincent stared at his sister.
“You used me.”
“You were easy to use.”
His face collapsed.
Twenty-seven years of grief suddenly looked foolish.
Elena signaled the guards.
They turned their weapons toward Vincent.
Roman pulled Antonio close.
Clara whispered, “Marcus?”
Nothing.
The warehouse doors slammed shut.
Signal jammers activated.
Elena smiled.
“You really thought I didn’t know Marcus Duca-Maritime would come through the east tunnel?”
Roman’s expression darkened.
“He’s not a Duca.”
“Everyone around you becomes family eventually.”
She lifted her weapon.
“You’ve become predictable.”
A shot exploded.
One guard fell.
Not from Roman.
From above.
Marcus stood on the overhead crane platform.
“Predict this.”
Chaos erupted.
Roman threw Antonio behind a steel barrier.
Clara covered him.
Vincent tackled Elena.
The drives fell.
Gunfire cracked through the warehouse.
Marcus’s team breached.
Roman grabbed Antonio.
“Eyes on me.”
The boy trembled.
Roman pressed the dinosaur into his hands.
“Hold Frederick.”
Another shot.
Clara screamed.
Roman turned.
Elena had escaped Vincent.
Her weapon was aimed at Clara.
Roman moved.
But Antonio moved first.
Not toward Elena.
Toward his mother.
“Mom!”
Clara grabbed him and turned.
The bullet struck the steel crate beside them.
Roman reached Elena in three steps.
He slammed the weapon from her hand.
She fell.
Roman stood over her.
For one terrible second, old instinct returned.
Kill the threat.
Finish it.
Then Antonio cried behind him.
“Dad!”
Roman stopped.
He looked at his son.
Sofia’s words returned.
Don’t kill everybody.
Roman stepped backward.
Marcus handcuffed Elena.
Rhodes’s agents stormed the warehouse.
Vincent sat against a crate.
Bleeding.
Broken.
Alive.
Roman crossed the floor.
Antonio ran into him.
Roman lifted his son so tightly Clara had to touch his arm.
“He needs oxygen.”
Roman loosened his grip slightly.
Antonio buried his face against Roman’s neck.
“I knew you’d come.”
Roman closed his eyes.
“Always.”
Across the warehouse, Elena laughed.
“You think this is over?”
Clara turned.
Elena smiled through blood on her lip.
“The archive already sent its dead-man signal.”
Rhodes froze.
“What signal?”
Elena looked at Roman.
May you like
“In six hours, every Crown Reserve file goes public.”
And suddenly rescuing Antonio had created a new disaster.
