Chapter 9 - THE WAR AT LUMINOSA
Mara woke fighting.
She struck the first guard who tried to restrain her and tore open the stitches on her own forehead.
“Where is Nate?”
Rafael stood beside the medical bed.
“We’re looking.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“Where is my son?”
“Salazar has him.”
Mara slapped Rafael.
The room went silent.
Diego lowered his eyes.
Sofia took one step forward.
Rafael lifted a hand, stopping her.
Mara’s palm left a red mark across his face.
“You brought this into our lives.”
“Yes.”
“You told him he was safe.”
“I told him he was safer.”
“He trusted you.”
Rafael’s voice dropped.
“I know.”
Mara grabbed the front of his shirt.
“If my son dies, I don’t care how many men you command. I will kill you myself.”
Rafael looked into her eyes.
“If Nate dies, you will not have to.”
He left the room.
Kell waited in the corridor.
“You think that makes you noble?” Kell asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
Rafael turned toward him.
“Salazar used the drainage tunnel.”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Who knew?”
“You. Me. Diego.”
Diego stood at the end of the corridor.
For the first time, suspicion moved visibly across Rafael’s face.
Diego saw it.
“I have been beside you for twenty years.”
“So was Kell.”
Diego flinched.
Kell almost smiled.
“Now you understand.”
Diego stepped closer.
“I did not take the boy.”
“Then prove it,” Rafael said.
They returned to Ristorante Luminosa because Salazar expected the estate to remain Rafael’s command center.
The restaurant had closed to the public.
Its dining room became a war room.
Maps covered the tables.
Phones rang continuously.
Captains reported attacks across the city.
Salazar’s men burned a De Santos trucking yard.
Rafael’s crews retaliated by seizing two dock terminals.
A police officer was killed outside a gambling room.
By sunset, the city could no longer pretend the violence was unrelated.
Television stations called it a coordinated organized-crime conflict.
The mayor promised arrests.
The police commissioner promised order.
Neither controlled the streets.
A video arrived at 8:03 p.m.
Nate sat in a metal chair.
His face was bruised, but he was awake.
Behind him stood a concrete wall painted green.
A train passed somewhere nearby.
Salazar entered the frame.
“You have an exceptional young friend.”
Rafael leaned toward the screen.
Nate’s eyes moved from left to right.
He was examining the room.
Memorizing.
“He refuses to cry,” Salazar continued. “I find that insulting.”
Nate looked into the camera.
“My mom says men who hurt kids are cowards.”
Salazar struck him across the face.
Mara screamed from behind Rafael.
Kell’s jaw tightened.
Salazar crouched beside Nate.
“You walked into Rafael’s restaurant because you believed he was powerful.”
Nate said nothing.
“Tell him what you believe now.”
Nate looked straight into the camera.
“I believe you talk too much.”
Salazar smiled.
Then he placed a gun against Nate’s temple.
“Bring Kell Mercer to the abandoned rail terminal in Astoria at midnight.”
Kell looked at Rafael.
“No.”
Salazar continued.
“Bring Diego too.”
Everyone turned toward him.
“Both traitors for one child.”
The video ended.
Diego’s face became unreadable.
“Why does he call me a traitor?”
Kell laughed.
“Maybe because you are one.”
Diego shoved him against the table.
Kell reached for the pistol at his belt.
Rafael stepped between them.
“Enough.”
He looked at Diego.
“Empty your pockets.”
The command shocked the room.
Diego obeyed slowly.
Wallet.
Keys.
Spare magazine.
Knife.
Two phones.
One belonged to him.
The second did not.
Rafael picked it up.
“What is this?”
“I’ve never seen it.”
Kell laughed again.
“How original.”
Rafael activated the screen.
A list of encrypted messages appeared.
Shipping schedules.
Safe-house locations.
Photographs of Sofia.
And a payment confirmation from a Salazar account.
Two million dollars.
Mara stared at Diego.
Sofia whispered his name.
Diego’s face collapsed.
“That phone was planted.”
“When?” Rafael asked.
“I don’t know.”
“In the twenty years you spent checking every room before I entered?”
“I don’t know!”
Rafael aimed a gun at his chest.
Diego did not move.
“Did you give Salazar the tunnel?”
“No.”
“Did you help take Nate?”
“No.”
“Did you sell Sofia?”
“No.”
Kell watched with cold satisfaction.
“This is how he does it,” he said. “Evidence appears, and Rafael chooses who dies.”
Rafael looked toward him.
The truth of the accusation landed harder than a bullet.
He lowered the weapon.
“Lock both of them in separate rooms.”
“Rafael,” Sofia began.
“Now.”
Kell and Diego were taken away.
Rafael replayed Nate’s video.
Green wall.
Metal chair.
Train noise.
A faint bell.
Nate had tapped his right foot four times, paused, then twice.
Four-two.
Rafael remembered the knock at apartment 3B.
Three, pause, two.
A private signal between Nate and Mara.
“What does four-two mean?” Rafael asked.
Mara covered her mouth.
“It’s a game.”
“What game?”
“When we ride trains, Nate counts the seconds between stations. Four-two means the train passed four seconds before a bell rang twice.”
Rafael looked at the map.
Only one abandoned rail terminal sat four seconds from a crossing bell with a double strike.
Not Astoria.
Salazar had given them a false location.
The actual site was beneath an old freight depot in Long Island City.
Rafael turned to his captains.
“We move now.”
The restaurant windows shattered.
A rocket-propelled grenade crossed the dining room.
Rafael saw the flame.
He threw Mara behind the stone bar.
The explosion lifted tables into the air.
Fire swallowed the room where Kell and Diego had been locked.
As Rafael crawled through the wreckage, he saw a figure walking through the flames.
May you like
Kell emerged carrying Diego over one shoulder.
Then the ceiling collapsed behind them.
