Chapter 12 - The Cathedral Trap
By 6:55 p.m., Fifth Avenue looked like the end of the world.
News crews packed sidewalks.
Police barricades appeared.
Federal agents disappeared into crowds dressed as tourists, priests, street vendors, and security personnel.
Nobody knew who had leaked the cathedral exchange.
Salvatore assumed Vittorio.
He wanted witnesses.
More importantly, he wanted law enforcement concentrated in Manhattan.
Gabriel wore a dark coat Rosa had bought that afternoon.
It was the first new coat he could remember owning.
He kept touching the sleeves as though they might vanish.
“You okay?” Salvatore asked.
“No.”
“Good answer.”
Gabriel looked up.
“Are you?”
“No.”
They stood inside an SUV one block away.
Carmine checked his watch.
Sloan’s voice came through a tiny earpiece hidden beneath Salvatore’s collar.
“We have eyes on twenty-three likely hostiles.”
“Vittorio?”
“Negative.”
“Dominic?”
“Negative.”
Gabriel looked toward Salvatore.
“He won’t come.”
Salvatore had begun thinking the same thing.
At seven exactly, every giant advertising screen across a nearby block flickered.
Then Vittorio’s face appeared.
News crews screamed.
Phones lifted.
A pre-recorded video.
“Salvatore,” Vittorio said, “you always did love dramatic entrances.”
Salvatore’s stomach dropped.
Wrong location.
Gabriel whispered, “I told you.”
The video continued.
“While New York watches you stand beside a church pretending to be a father, I’m reclaiming what belongs to me.”
Sloan shouted through the earpiece.
“The vault!”
Salvatore grabbed Gabriel.
“Move.”
They returned to the vehicle.
“Where is the vault?” Sloan asked.
Mrs. Alvarez had finally revealed it.
Not Geneva.
That story had always been misdirection.
The archive was physically stored beneath a private bank in lower Manhattan.
The brass key activated an off-grid elevator.
Elena’s ledgers provided rotating access codes.
Gabriel’s voice opened the final chamber.
But Vittorio should not have been able to enter without the key.
Unless—
Salvatore turned toward Gabriel.
“Where is it?”
Gabriel looked confused.
“The key.”
“I didn’t bring it.”
“Where did you hide it?”
Gabriel hesitated.
Salvatore understood.
“Saint Catherine’s?”
“No.”
“The orphanage?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
Gabriel looked toward Mrs. Alvarez.
She gave a tiny nod.
The boy reached beneath his collar.
Around his neck hung a cheap wooden cross Rosa had noticed earlier.
Gabriel snapped it in half.
Inside was a brass sliver.
Salvatore stared.
“The key.”
“Part of it.”
Mrs. Alvarez smiled faintly.
“Elena cut it.”
“How many pieces?”
“Three.”
Gabriel held one.
Mrs. Alvarez reached beneath the bandage around her wrist and removed another.
Salvatore stared.
“Where’s the third?”
Mrs. Alvarez’s smile vanished.
“Dominic.”
Everything clicked.
Dominic had not been kidnapped merely for revenge.
Vittorio needed his piece.
“Then Vittorio has two now if he took Dominic’s.”
“Yes.”
“He still needs Gabriel’s.”
Gabriel looked at the tiny brass piece.
Then the SUV windshield exploded.
Salvatore threw himself over the boy.
Gunfire shattered glass.
Driver accelerated.
Carmine returned fire through the rear window.
“Ambush!”
A motorcycle came alongside.
The rider raised a weapon.
Sloan’s tactical vehicle struck it from behind.
Metal screamed.
Gabriel stayed under Salvatore.
“Don’t move!”
“I’m not!”
The SUV swerved onto Madison Avenue.
Another vehicle rammed them.
Airbags exploded.
Salvatore’s ears rang.
He turned.
“Gabriel?”
No answer.
“Gabriel!”
The rear door was open.
Empty.
Salvatore’s heart stopped.
Then he heard the boy underneath him.
“I’m here.”
Gabriel had fallen into the footwell.
Salvatore dragged him up.
“Key?”
Gabriel checked his fist.
Still there.
Carmine shouted, “We can’t go to the bank. They’ll follow!”
Salvatore looked out at traffic.
He understood what Vittorio expected.
The key fragment delivered to the vault.
So they would do the opposite.
“Take us to Times Square.”
Carmine stared.
“What?”
“Do it.”
Minutes later they entered a sea of people.
Salvatore took Gabriel’s key fragment.
“Trust me?”
The boy looked at him.
“Yes.”
Salvatore walked toward a street musician sitting beside an open guitar case.
He dropped five hundred dollars in cash.
Then placed the tiny brass fragment inside the musician’s tip jar.
“Keep playing.”
The musician blinked.
“What?”
“Don’t stop for ten minutes.”
Salvatore walked away.
Gabriel’s mouth fell open.
“You gave him the key?”
“For ten minutes.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone watching us assumes I’d never let it out of my hand.”
Behind them, a man wearing a baseball cap approached the musician.
Then another.
Both Vittorio’s people.
Carmine smiled.
“Caught them.”
Federal agents moved.
The street erupted.
Sloan grabbed the key fragment before either man could reach it.
One attacker was arrested.
The other swallowed poison before interrogation.
Inside his jacket, agents found a bank access card.
Vittorio’s personal card.
Sloan looked at Salvatore.
“He’s already inside.”
Salvatore’s phone buzzed.
Live video.
Dominic lay on a bank floor.
Vittorio stood beside an old steel elevator.
He held two brass key fragments.
Then he looked into the camera.
“I only need the third.”
A second figure stepped into frame.
Vincent.
Salvatore froze.
Vincent held a gun.
And in his other hand—
Mrs. Alvarez’s key fragment.
Salvatore turned.
She checked her bandage.
Empty.
Vincent had stolen it.
On screen, Vittorio smiled.
“My loyal son finally remembered which side he belongs on.”
Gabriel stared.
Salvatore said nothing.
May you like
Then Vincent looked directly into the camera.
And winked.
