Chapter 7 - THE STORAGE UNIT
Victor wanted twenty men.
Tessa wanted to go alone.
They compromised at six.
“Your idea of compromise is terrible,” Tessa said from the passenger seat.
Victor checked his pistol.
“You’re alive.”
“For now.”
“That’s the goal.”
The storage facility sat beneath an elevated train line on the west side.
Rain hammered the windshield.
Nico drove.
Two SUVs followed.
Tessa stared outside.
“My mother used to play that music box every Sunday morning.”
Victor glanced at her.
“What song?”
“You Are My Sunshine.”
She smiled faintly.
“She sang terribly.”
“Maybe you remember it wrong.”
“I don’t.”
The smile vanished.
“She told me the box belonged to my grandmother.”
“What did Liam find?”
“A brass key taped under the velvet lining.”
“You never saw it?”
“No.”
Victor watched the rain.
“Tessa.”
“What?”
“If Russo was telling the truth about your mother—”
“He was.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know my mother.”
She looked at him.
“She was scared for the last year of her life. I was eleven. I didn’t understand it then.”
Tessa swallowed.
“She checked the locks three times every night. She stopped letting us walk to school. She kept saying we might move.”
Victor said nothing.
“I thought she was just being weird.”
“You were a kid.”
“Yeah.”
Tessa looked away.
“Kids notice more than adults think.”
At the storage facility, Victor’s men cleared the first hallway.
Unit 312.
Tessa held the key.
Her hand trembled slightly.
Victor noticed.
“You don’t have to open it.”
“Yes, I do.”
She unlocked the door.
Dust.
Boxes.
Old furniture.
A bicycle Liam had outgrown.
Her mother’s winter coat.
Tessa stopped when she saw it.
She touched the sleeve.
For a moment, the dangerous men and guns disappeared.
Then Victor’s voice came gently.
“The music box.”
“Right.”
They found it inside a taped cardboard box.
Tessa lifted the wooden lid.
The faded song played.
You are my sunshine…
Her eyes filled.
Liam had ripped the velvet lining.
Beneath it was an empty space.
No key.
Tessa turned.
“Liam took it.”
Victor’s phone rang.
Paulie.
“Boss, Liam’s gone.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“How?”
“He attacked one of the guards.”
Tessa closed her eyes.
“Of course he did.”
Then gunfire erupted outside.
Victor shoved Tessa behind a concrete column.
“Nico!”
“East entrance!”
Bullets tore through the metal doors.
Victor fired back.
Tessa crouched beside the boxes.
A man appeared behind them.
Not one of Victor’s.
He grabbed Tessa by the hair.
She screamed.
Victor turned.
The man pressed a gun against her throat.
“Drop it, Romano.”
Victor froze.
“Do it.”
His pistol lowered.
The attacker smiled.
Tessa looked at Victor.
He looked calm.
Too calm.
She understood.
Victor was waiting for something.
Tessa stomped hard on the attacker’s foot.
He flinched.
She slammed her head backward into his nose.
Victor fired.
The man fell.
Victor crossed the room in seconds.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He cupped the back of her head, checking.
His hands were gentle despite the violence around them.
Tessa stared at him.
Then Nico shouted from the hallway.
“Boss!”
Victor turned.
A wounded attacker had been captured.
Victor crouched in front of him.
“Who sent you?”
The man laughed.
“You still think this is DeLuca?”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
The man looked directly at Tessa.
“The person who wants the ledger has been living under your roof for twenty years.”
Victor slowly stood.
May you like
Back at the estate, only one person had been there that long.
Paulie.
