Warehouse Seventeen
Chapter 09 - Warehouse Seventeen
Alessandro said no five times.
Isabella ignored him five times.
By the sixth, Bianca pushed a cup of coffee toward him and said, "You are wasting oxygen."
He glared at her.
She drank her coffee.
They planned around Isabella because planning without her had stopped working.
Warehouse 17 sat on the edge of an industrial yard near Port Newark, surrounded by stacked containers and sodium lights that made everything look jaundiced. Marco's men would enter from the river side. Alessandro would approach through the loading bay.
Isabella would remain in an armored vehicle until Maya was confirmed alive.
That was the compromise.
It lasted until Isabella saw something no one else had noticed.
She was changing into a dark sweater when her fingers caught on the chain at her neck.
Not the brass key.
The other chain.
A small silver Saint Christopher medal rested against her collarbone.
She had worn it since she was sixteen.
Thomas had given it to her the week after the funeral.
For eight years, it had become so ordinary she no longer thought of it as jewelry.
She stared at it.
SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT SHE IS CARRYING.
"Thomas."
He looked up.
"Where did this come from?"
His face went blank.
Too blank.
"Your mother."
"You told me you bought it."
"I lied."
"Obviously."
She lifted it off.
There was a tiny seam around the edge.
Alessandro took it from her.
"May I?"
She nodded.
He used the point of a small knife.
The medal opened.
Inside was a strip of transparent film no wider than Isabella's fingernail.
Bianca whispered, "Oh, Daniel."
The brass key opened something.
The medal contained something.
Her father had split the evidence.
No single thief could use one without the other.
Marco photographed the film and sent the image to a secure computer.
Numbers emerged under magnification.
Account codes.
Container numbers.
Names written in initials.
One line was underlined.
W17 / 4C / ORIGINAL.
Warehouse 17.
Locker 4C.
Alessandro looked at Isabella.
"You're staying in the car."
"This tells us where to look."
"Which is exactly why you're staying in the car."
She opened her mouth.
He held up one hand.
"Please."
The word surprised both of them.
"You asked me to stop treating you like property."
His voice was low.
"I'm asking, not ordering."
Isabella studied him.
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"Don't make me regret rewarding personal growth."
Bianca covered a smile.
At 3:12 a.m., they reached the port.
Isabella sat in the armored SUV with Bianca and two guards, listening through an earpiece.
Marco's voice.
"South entrance clear."
Then Alessandro.
"Moving."
Metal doors groaned somewhere beyond the windshield.
Isabella could see only rows of containers.
Then a woman's scream crackled through the earpiece.
Maya.
Isabella reached for the door.
Bianca caught her wrist.
"Wait."
"That's her."
"I know."
Another voice came over the comms.
Matteo.
"Bring Isabella inside."
Alessandro answered.
"Let Maya go."
Matteo laughed softly.
"Still negotiating as if you're in charge."
Isabella closed her eyes.
Maya was alive.
That was all that mattered.
Matteo continued.
"The key is useless without what she wears around her neck."
Bianca looked at Isabella.
The medal.
They had been right.
Isabella held up the chain.
The medal hanging there was a duplicate Marco had prepared from a photograph.
The real strip of film was already locked inside Alessandro's estate safe.
"Tell him I'm coming," she said.
Bianca shook her head.
"Absolutely not."
"He's expecting me."
"Which is usually a reason not to go."
"If he thinks I have the real medal, he'll focus on me."
"And if he realizes you don't?"
"Then Alessandro has whatever time I can buy."
Bianca stared at her.
"You're either very brave or completely insane."
"I work emergency clinicals."
"So both."
Isabella stepped out.
Rain had begun again.
Of course it had.
Warehouse 17 smelled of salt, diesel, and cold metal.
She entered through the loading door with both hands visible.
Maya sat tied to a chair beneath a hanging work light.
Her glasses were crooked.
There was blood at the corner of her mouth.
But she was conscious.
"Isa?"
"I'm here."
Maya's face twisted.
"You absolute idiot."
Relief nearly broke Isabella.
Then Matteo stepped out from behind a container.
He no longer looked charming.
He looked tired.
There was a pistol in his right hand.
"Take off the necklace."
Isabella did.
"Let her go."
"The necklace."
She held it out.
Matteo moved closer.
Behind him, a second man appeared.
Victor Petrov.
Isabella recognized the voice before the face.
Warehouse seventeen.
He was older than she expected.
Silver hair.
Beautiful suit.
The mild expression of a banker explaining a mortgage.
"This girl has caused extraordinary inconvenience," Petrov said.
"Funny. I've been thinking the same about you."
Matteo almost smiled.
Petrov did not.
Maya looked at Isabella.
"Don't give them anything."
"I wasn't planning to."
Isabella dropped the medal.
Then stepped on it.
The casing bent beneath her heel.
Matteo lunged.
Gunfire erupted from the far side of the warehouse.
Lights went out.
Someone grabbed Isabella.
She drove her elbow backward the way Alessandro's security instructor had shown her earlier that evening.
The grip loosened.
She dropped.
A body hit the concrete beside her.
"Isabella!"
Alessandro's voice.
"Here!"
A hand found her shoulder.
She almost struck again.
"It's me."
He pulled her behind a steel support.
Maya was gone from the chair.
"Where is she?"
"Marco has her."
Petrov's men were retreating toward the loading yard.
Matteo stood behind a forklift, gun raised.
For one second, his eyes met Isabella's.
Something strange crossed his face.
Regret.
Then he disappeared through a side door.
Petrov escaped with him.
Ten minutes later, the warehouse was secure.
Maya had a split lip and bruised wrists but nothing broken.
She hugged Isabella so hard neither could breathe.
Then slapped her arm.
"You are never allowed to call me dramatic again."
"Deal."
Alessandro found locker 4C.
The brass key turned perfectly.
Inside was a waterproof metal case.
No money.
No weapons.
Only a ledger and an old cassette recorder.
Daniel Santos's handwriting covered the first page.
Alessandro opened it.
His face changed.
"What?"
Isabella asked.
He turned the ledger toward her.
Beneath columns of payments, Daniel had written one sentence in red ink.
IF THIS BOOK IS FOUND, THE PERSON WHO ARRANGED THE GALA WILL KNOW ISABELLA HAS THE REST.
Isabella stared.
"The gala?"
Alessandro looked toward the broken warehouse doors.
May you like
The night she overheard Petrov's men had never been an accident.
Someone had put her in that ballroom on purpose.
