Chapter 6
We reached Boston in a storm.
Not as bad as the one that killed my parents.
But enough to make the harbor black and restless.
Police worked with federal agents while Cesare’s security team tracked the courier shipment.
I sat in the back of an SUV beside my grandfather, watching rain tear across the windows.
Neither of us spoke for a long time.
Then he said, “Your mother would hate this.”
I looked at him.
“The storm?”
“The secrecy.”
That surprised me.
He stared ahead.
“Lucia believed truth was a form of respect. Even painful truth.”
“She sounds smarter than us.”
A sad smile touched his mouth.
“She was.”
For the first time all night, my anger shifted.
Not gone.
Just moved enough for grief to breathe.
“Tell me something true about her.”
Cesare’s eyes filled.
“She was fearless on boats and terrified of elevators.”
I blinked.
Then laughed once, broken and small.
“What?”
“She would sail into open water without blinking, but if a hotel elevator made one strange sound, she took the stairs in heels.”
I wiped my eyes.
“And my father?”
“Marco sang when he was nervous.”
“What did he sing?”
“Terrible opera.”
The laugh that came out of me became a sob.
Cesare reached for my hand.
This time, I let him take it.
The call came at 4:12 a.m.
Rosa’s voice over the speaker.
“We found the courier van. Driver tied up but alive. Package moved to Pier 17. Private vessel named Selene.”
Cesare’s hand tightened around mine.
Selene.
My mother’s middle name.
Ethan was not only stealing.
He was mocking us.
The harbor raid happened fast.
Blue lights.
Rain.
Agents moving across wet concrete.
I stayed behind the barricade because Cesare made one request, not an order.
“Let me keep one promise tonight.”
I stayed.
Barely.
From the pier, shouting rose.
Then a crash.
Then a man running across the dock with a waterproof case.
Ethan.
He had somehow gotten released earlier than the others through a paperwork delay.
Or someone had helped him.
He sprinted toward a smaller boat.
Rosa moved to intercept him, but he swung the case hard and knocked her off balance.
Cesare stepped forward.
I grabbed his arm.
“No.”
Ethan saw us.
Even from across the rain, I could see his smile.
He lifted the case.
Then he shouted, “Your parents begged too!”
The world narrowed.
My feet moved before thought.
I ducked under the barricade and ran.
“Avice!” Cesare shouted.
An agent tried to stop me.
I slipped past.
Ethan reached the smaller boat and jumped in.
The engine coughed.
I grabbed a loose dock line and threw it over the stern cleat before he could pull away.
I had grown up on boats.
He had grown up hating us for them.
That difference mattered.
The line snapped tight.
The boat lurched.
Ethan fell sideways.
Agents swarmed.
He fought like a trapped man.
Then Rosa, bleeding from one eyebrow, climbed onto the boat and pinned his arm behind him.
The case slid across the deck.
Straight toward the water.
I lunged and caught it by the handle.
For one terrifying second, my knees hit the slick edge of the dock.
Water churned below.
Hands grabbed my coat.
Cesare.
He pulled me back with a sound that was almost a cry.
“Never again,” he whispered. “I cannot lose you too.”
I held the case against my chest.
Rain mixed with tears on my face.
“You didn’t.”
Ethan was dragged past us in handcuffs.
His face was twisted with hate.
“You don’t know what your family did.”
I stepped toward him.
“No. But I know what you did.”
His smile faltered.
“I know you used Vanessa. I know you helped Diane. I know you tried to erase me with a fake pregnancy and old grief. And I know my parents are still dead while you are still making excuses.”
For the first time, he had no answer.
Inside the waterproof case, agents found the stolen artifacts.
The compass.
The Madonna.
The brass tube.
And wrapped beneath them, my mother’s pearl bracelet.
Ethan had taken it from my room himself.
Not for money.
For cruelty.
I held it in my palm at the federal office an hour later.
The pearls were cold.
But they were back.
So was the manifest.
May you like
And for the first time since I was seventeen, the storm outside felt like weather.
Not a verdict.
