Chapter 6 - Pier 19
“No,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“No,” I said again, louder. “Eli is not going.”
Vincent stood near the window, his face like stone.
“Lily—”
“He’s a baby.”
“I know.”
“They will hurt him.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you even thinking about it?”
Because he had no answer, he didn’t speak.
Detective Pierce stood beside Grandma’s bed, talking into her phone. Federal agents had arrived. The whole apartment felt crowded with people and fear.
Pier 19 was an old shipping dock on the East River. Bellini used it years ago for illegal cargo before the city shut the warehouses down.
Now it was empty.
Or supposed to be.
“We can set surveillance,” Detective Pierce said. “We can place a team around the perimeter.”
“And if Bellini sees them?” Vincent asked.
“Then we adapt.”
“He kills Mariah.”
“You don’t know that.”
Vincent looked at her.
“I do.”
Grandma reached for my hand.
“Lily,” she whispered, “we have to trust the adults.”
I wanted to scream.
Adults had failed us so many times.
Mariah had trusted the wrong people. Grandma had trusted a stranger at an ATM. I had trusted a restaurant full of rich people not to throw us out.
And Vincent?
He was an adult too, but I still didn’t know whether he was saving us or dragging us into a different kind of danger.
Then Eli began crying.
Not loudly.
Just a tired, hungry cry.
I lifted him, and he wrapped his hand around my finger.
That tiny grip made something clear.
He had no choice in this.
So I would choose for him.
“I’m going,” I said.
Vincent turned sharply. “No.”
“I know Eli. If he gets scared, he calms down with me.”
“No.”
“You said they want the baby. You can take someone else’s baby, but they will know.”
“No one is taking either of you.”
“Then what are we doing?”
Vincent looked away.
That was answer enough.
At 11:45 that night, a convoy of black vehicles moved toward Pier 19.
I sat in the backseat beside Vincent. Eli slept against my chest, wearing his yellow hat.
Vincent had insisted I wear a small earpiece. Detective Pierce’s voice whispered from somewhere nearby.
“Teams are in position. Do not deviate from the plan.”
“What plan?” I whispered.
Vincent looked at me.
“The plan is to bring Mariah home.”
When we arrived, rain fell hard against the river.
The old warehouse looked like a giant dark mouth.
Bellini’s men waited inside.
Vincent carried a duffel bag. I knew it held money, though he had not said how much.
I carried Eli.
Then I saw Mariah.
She was tied to a chair beneath a hanging work light. Her face was bruised. Her hair was wet. But she was alive.
The moment she saw Eli, she began crying.
“My baby,” she whispered.
Arturo Bellini stepped from the shadows.
He was older than Vincent, dressed in a perfect gray suit, with kind-looking eyes that made him even more frightening.
“Vincent,” he said. “You always were sentimental about children.”
“Let her go.”
Bellini smiled. “Bring the baby.”
“No.”
“You are in no position to negotiate.”
Mariah shook her head frantically.
“Don’t give him Eli,” she cried. “Please.”
Bellini struck her across the face.
I gasped.
Vincent moved forward, but guns appeared from the shadows.
“Stay,” Bellini said.
My whole body shook.
Then Bellini looked at me.
“You must be Lily.”
I held Eli tighter.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know your grandmother. Rose Carter was a teacher, wasn’t she?”
My blood turned cold.
“How do you know that?”
“People like me know everything that matters.”
Vincent’s voice was low and deadly. “You leave them out of this.”
Bellini smiled. “You brought them into this the moment you sat them at your table.”
Then he looked at Eli.
“That child is proof.”
“Proof of what?” I asked.
Bellini’s smile disappeared.
“Of betrayal.”
Mariah looked at Vincent.
“Tell them,” she whispered.
Vincent stared at Bellini.
Then he said, “Rafael stole Bellini’s ledger.”
I looked at Mariah.
“Your brother?”
She nodded through tears.
“He found out Bellini was paying police officers, judges, city officials. He wanted out. He gave the ledger to Eli’s father.”
“And then?” I asked.
“Then they killed him,” she said.
Bellini’s men shifted.
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Mariah took Eli and ran,” he said. “She hid him with Rose because she thought no one would look there.”
Bellini stepped forward.
“The ledger is gone. Your brother is gone. Your boyfriend is gone. Yet you still refuse to tell me where the copies are.”
Mariah laughed weakly.
“I don’t know.”
Bellini turned to me.
“But perhaps the child does.”
I backed away.
Vincent moved.
Everything happened at once.
The warehouse lights exploded into darkness.
A flash grenade thundered from the far side of the room.
Agents rushed in.
Someone grabbed my arm, but I twisted away, falling hard to the wet concrete with Eli protected beneath me.
Vincent fought through two men to reach Mariah.
Gunfire cracked.
I heard Detective Pierce shouting.
Then a bullet struck Vincent in the side.
He stumbled.
“Vincent!” I screamed.
But he kept moving.
He reached Mariah, cut the rope around her wrists, and pushed her toward us.
“Take Eli,” I shouted.
Mariah fell beside me, sobbing as she reached for her son.
For one second, Eli stared at her.
Then he recognized her voice.
His little face crumpled.
And he reached for his mother.
Bellini tried to escape through the loading door.
But Detective Pierce was waiting.
“Arturo Bellini!” she shouted. “Drop the weapon!”
He turned.
For one terrible second, I thought he would shoot her.
Then Vincent, bleeding and barely standing, said, “It’s over.”
Bellini looked at him.
“No,” he replied. “Men like us don’t end. We just change names.”
Then he lowered the gun.
May you like
And the police took him away.
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