Chapter 5 - The Safehouse on 4th Street
The South Boston apartment smelled of stale tea, old newspapers, and damp wool.
It was a small, second-floor flat above a closed bakery on 4th Street—a property that didn't exist on any city property record because it was registered to a shell company my father had created thirty years ago during the dockworkers' strike.
I sat at the worn laminate kitchen table, a single desk lamp illuminating the open pages of Dominic’s ledger.
The handwriting inside was precise, tiny, and written in a combination of Italian shorthand and commercial shipping codes. Over the past six hours, using an old maritime dictionary I had found in my father’s trunk, I had managed to translate three key pages.
It wasn't just about drugs or extortion.
Julianna’s family in Montreal wasn't working alone. They were partnering with a private equity firm based out of Manhattan—Vanguard Logistics—to buy up the entire commercial port authority of Boston through forced bankruptcies and bribed city council members. Dominic had refused to sell his family’s historical port stakes, which made him the single obstacle standing in the way of a multi-billion-dollar corporate takeover disguised as a mob war.
TAP. TAP. TAP.
The rhythm was identical to the sound Julianna had made on the bedroom door three days ago.
I instantly closed the ledger, grabbed the Glock from the table, and stepped back into the dark corner behind the refrigerator, leveling the barrel at the reinforced oak entrance.
"Bridget," a low, familiar voice called out through the mail slot. "It’s Agent Miller. I’m alone. Dominic sent me."
I didn't lower the gun. "What was the name of my father's union local?"
"Local 802," Miller replied without hesitation. "He was the shop steward during the '94 strike. Now open the door before the snow tracks lead your friends from Montreal straight to this landing."
I unlatched the heavy iron deadbolt and pulled the door open six inches.
Agent Sarah Miller stepped inside, shaking the snow off her dark coat. She was alone, her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun, her eyes tired but sharp. She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a silver thermos, and set it on the kitchen table alongside a sealed envelope bearing the seal of the United States District Court.
"Dominic is in a secure medical facility at Hanscom Air Force Base," Miller said, taking off her leather gloves. "The thallium is out of his system, but his kidney function is low. The doctors say he has six months if he stays under constant care."
"And Julianna?" I asked, locking the door behind her.
"She disappeared twenty minutes before the raid," Miller said, her jaw clenching. "Vincent is in federal custody, but he’s refusing to talk without a immunity agreement. Julianna took three millions in bearer bonds from the master safe and boarded a private helicopter out of Bedford. We think she’s hiding in a safehouse near the Gloucester docks."
"She’s not in Gloucester," I said, leaning against the counter, keeping my hand near my weapon. "She’s at the warehouse on Pier 42."
Miller looked up, her eyes narrowing. "How do you know that?"
I opened the ledger on the table and pointed to a line of shorthand dated four months ago.
"Because Pier 42 isn't registered to the Costello family," I explained. "It’s registered directly to Julianna’s maiden name—Moretti Holdings. It’s where the high-frequency radio equipment for the shipping vessels is housed. If she’s coordinating with Vanguard Logistics in New York, she needs that shortwave link to execute the port transfer before Dominic’s legal team can freeze the corporate assets."
Miller walked over to the table, leaning over the ledger, her eyes scanning the tiny, precise Italian shorthand.
"You translated this yourself?" she asked, a genuine look of respect appearing on her face.
"My father didn't just work the docks, Agent Miller," I said quietly. "He taught me how to read cargo manifest codes when I was twelve years old. In South Boston, girls like me don't just sweep floors; we keep our eyes open."
Miller looked at me for a long moment, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a secondary encryption key device.
"Dominic gave me a message for you," Miller said. "He said if you gave me the ledger, I was supposed to give you this key and tell you that the account in Zurich has your name on it as the sole beneficiary."
I looked at the small silver device sitting on the laminate table.
"I don't want his money," I said firmly. "I want the people who poisoned a dying man in his own bed to stand in a courtroom and look at the girl who cleaned their mess."
May you like
Miller smiled—a cold, fierce expression that made her look less like a federal agent and more like a woman who enjoyed hunting monsters.
"Then put your coat on, Bridget," Miller said, pulling a secondary bulletproof vest out of her leather bag and tossing it onto the chair. "Let's go take back Pier 42."
