Chapter 8 - The Meaning of 107
Sophie had drawn the number everywhere.
On the backs of grocery receipts.
Inside school notebooks.
Beneath the table in Elena’s apartment.
One hundred seven.
Elena had assumed it was an imaginary code from a game.
Gabriel recognized it immediately.
“Locker 107,” he said.
They gathered in the estate’s security room while Sophie slept upstairs. Salvatore’s brass token sat beside the photograph and Carlo Russo’s records.
“Where?” Vincent asked.
“The original Union Station locker hall,” Gabriel said. “Carlo used it when he moved documents. But those lockers were replaced years ago.”
“Not all of them,” Tony said. “A sealed storage section still exists beneath the eastern platform.”
Elena looked at Gabriel.
“How would Sophie know that?”
He did not answer.
Vincent watched him.
“You told her.”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Maria’s expression changed.
“She met Salvatore.”
Everyone turned toward her.
“Last year,” Maria continued. “Salvatore found us in Wisconsin. Gabriel was away. He didn’t threaten us. He only wanted to see Sophie.”
Gabriel stood abruptly.
“You never told me this.”
“He begged me not to. He gave Sophie a coin and told her that if anything happened to her mother, she should remember the number.”
Elena’s face went pale.
“He knew the attack was coming.”
Vincent picked up the brass token.
“Or he knew where Carlo hid something capable of stopping it.”
They went to Union Station before dawn.
This time, Vincent did not walk into the trap blind.
Tony shut down surveillance feeds. Gabriel led them through a maintenance tunnel. Maria remained at the estate with Sophie while Elena insisted on coming despite her injuries.
“She is my daughter,” Elena said. “If this concerns her, I go.”
Locker 107 stood behind a brick wall in a forgotten luggage room.
The brass token opened it.
Inside was a child’s music box.
Nothing else.
Elena lifted it carefully. When she turned the key, a soft melody played.
Vincent recognized it.
Maria used to hum the same tune while cooking.
Gabriel stared at him.
“Carlo heard Maria sing it once.”
They removed the velvet lining and found a flash drive embedded beneath the mechanism.
Tony connected it to an isolated laptop.
A single video file appeared.
Carlo Russo filled the screen.
He looked exhausted and afraid.
“If Isabella is watching this,” he began, “then I failed to keep you out of this war.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Carlo explained that the Covenant had grown far beyond Paul D’Amato. It controlled construction contracts, prisons, banks and election funding. The archive contained proof, but releasing it without preparation would trigger assassinations across the city.
Then Carlo said something no one expected.
“Gabriel Torino cannot be trusted.”
Gabriel went still.
“He believes he is using Paul,” Carlo continued, “but pride makes men predictable. Gabriel wants to replace his brother. Paul intends to let him try, then bury them both.”
Vincent looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“That was years ago.”
The video continued.
“The final access code must never be entered while Gabriel is present. His biometric profile has been marked by Paul. If the system detects him, it will send the Covenant our location.”
Tony disconnected the laptop immediately.
Too late.
A warning flashed across the screen:
BIOMETRIC MATCH CONFIRMED.
LOCATION TRANSMITTED.
Gabriel stared at the message.
“I didn’t know.”
Vincent grabbed him by the jacket.
“You never know until everyone else pays for it.”
The sound of boots echoed in the tunnel.
Dozens.
Tony extinguished the lights.
“Positions!”
Gunfire erupted through the brick wall.
Vincent pulled Elena behind a support column while Gabriel returned fire. Bullets sparked from the lockers. Tony’s men fell back toward the maintenance passage.
A grenade rolled across the floor.
Gabriel kicked it into an empty corridor.
The explosion shook dust from the ceiling.
“We’re trapped,” Tony shouted.
Elena examined the old station blueprint displayed on the laptop.
“There’s a storm tunnel beneath us.”
“The access hatch is welded shut,” Tony said.
Vincent fired at the hinges while Gabriel used a steel bar to pry the hatch open.
They descended one by one.
Elena went first.
Tony followed.
Vincent turned toward Gabriel.
“Go.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“They’ll follow.”
“We’ll block the hatch.”
“Not long enough.”
More Covenant soldiers entered the room.
Gabriel looked at Vincent with an expression almost like the younger brother he once remembered.
“I spent thirty years blaming you because it was easier than admitting I ruined everything.”
Vincent understood what he intended.
“No.”
“Take care of Sophie.”
“She is your daughter.”
“That is why I’m asking.”
Gabriel slammed the hatch shut between them.
Vincent struck the metal.
“Gabriel!”
Through the narrow gap, he saw his brother overturn a fuel drum.
Gunfire surrounded him.
Gabriel raised his pistol toward the spreading gasoline.
“For once,” he said, “let me save the family.”
May you like
The tunnel exploded.
The shock wave threw Vincent backward into darkness.
