Chapter 4 - The Trap on Lexington
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"Looking for me?" Elena repeated, the warmth of the salary offer evaporating instantly into a chill that ran down her spine. "Mr. Bellini, Count Sabatini is an international shipping magnate. We’re in Midtown Manhattan, not a movie—"
"Count Sabatini is the financial front for Don Raffaele Costa of Naples," Lucian interrupted calmly, walking over to his leather briefcase and pulling out a sleek matte-black encrypted iPhone, which he pressed into her palm. "And if you think Manhattan is too civilized for Raffaele Costa, ask the last port commissioner who blocked his containers in Brooklyn. They found him in the East River inside an oil drum."
Elena stared down at the black phone in her hand. "Then I need to go home to Queens right now and get my father."
"Dante already dispatched four of my men in two armored Escalades to your apartment in Astoria ten minutes ago," Lucian said, checking his watch. "By five o’clock this afternoon, your father and all of his medical equipment will be moved into a private two-bedroom suite at the Carlyle Residence on the Upper East Side, under twenty-four-hour armed guard."
"You’re moving my father without even asking me?!"
"I’m keeping your father breathing, Elena," Lucian said, his gunmetal eyes flashing with quiet steel. "You stepped into the fire for me when you picked up that contract. In my family, when someone guards my back, I guard theirs. No negotiations."
Before she could argue, the private line on Lucian’s desk buzzed. He hit the speaker button.
"Boss," Clara Vance’s voice came through the line, tight and breathless with panic over the wail of distant sirens. "We just got to the translation bureau on Lexington. We were ten minutes too late."
Lucian’s hand braced on the obsidian table. "What happened?"
"The translator who certified Sabatini’s draft—a man named Marco Rossi—is dead at his desk. Suppressed .22 to the back of the head. Whoever did it wiped the server hard drives and walked out the fire escape three minutes before we walked in."
Elena’s blood turned to ice as she listened. Five minutes ago, she had half-believed Lucian was exaggerating the danger to bully her into working for him. Now, a man four blocks away was dead with a bullet in his skull just to cover up the exact translation trap she had exposed!
"Get out of there before NYPD ropes off the lobby, Clara," Lucian ordered coldly, hanging up the phone.
He turned to look at Elena. Seeing the sudden pallor on her cheeks, his harsh expression softened by a fraction of an inch.
"Marco Rossi wasn't killed just to cover Sabatini’s tracks," Lucian said, thinking aloud as he paced the length of the window. "Sabatini only left this building twenty minutes ago. Even if he ordered a cleaner the second he stepped into the elevator, why kill the translator after the deal already blew up?"
Elena’s analytical mind forced its way past her fear. "Wait... earlier, Ms. Vance said that same translation firm on Lexington handles all of your European customs filings."
Lucian stopped dead in his tracks. Slowly, he turned his head toward her.
"What if Sabatini’s Genoa port contract today wasn't the real operation?" Elena said rapidly, stepping toward the table. "Every person in this room knew Ms. Vance was sharp enough to spot discrepancies in a two-hundred-million-dollar merger—she was already asking for forty-eight hours before I opened my mouth! What if Sabatini wanted you focused on the Genoa contract today so you wouldn't look at what Marco Rossi translated for your customs division last week?"
For two seconds, Lucian just stared at her. Then he strode to the door and yanked it open.
"Bring me every customs manifest and bill of lading certified by Lexington Translations in the last fourteen days!" Lucian barked to the floor secretary outside. "Every single box! In here in five minutes!"
Three minutes later, two junior clerks rolled a steel cart stacked with twelve thick blue archive binders into Boardroom A.
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Lucian locked the doors again, stripped off his charcoal suit jacket, tossed it over a chair, and rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt over his lean, corded forearms. He pushed half the binders across the glass to Elena.
"Look for anything routed through Naples or Genoa that cleared Red Hook or Port Newark this week," Lucian said, pulling up a chair directly beside hers—so close his shoulder brushed hers as they opened the first folders. "Show me what my lawyers missed."
