Chapter 7 - THE MAN ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLASS
Elena stood beside the library window, watching the last drops of rain slide down the glass. Somewhere beyond those hills, her brother might be counting the minutes until morning.
Leah's officers had reached the retired boat workshop. Through the radio came measured descriptions of an empty main floor, dark offices, and a locked room upstairs.
Elena held her breath as the team checked the rooms. In the silence between transmissions, she heard every mistake she feared she had made since accepting the dinner assignment.
Finally, Leah's radio crackled. “One witness located,” an officer reported. “Adult male, warehouse mechanic, conscious and frightened. No sign of Daniel Torres in the building.”
The witness was Luis Perez, a sixty-year-old contractor who serviced vessels at the dry dock. He said two men had forced him to prepare a boat for an unscheduled departure.
Luis had seen a younger man matching Daniel's description escorted through the workshop. Daniel was walking under his own power, but he appeared to be under threat.
“They moved him toward the covered ferry berth,” Luis told the officers. “I heard one of them say the boss's meeting had gone bad. Then they locked me upstairs.”
Leah compared his statement with the vehicle records. The covered berth belonged to a maritime subsidiary newly transferred into Adrian's control through the disputed paperwork.
“Adrian's closing his escape route,” Marcus said. Victor leaned over the map, but Leah pushed a copy toward him rather than allowing his impatience to interrupt her team.
“We have people in position,” she explained. “Our priority is the hostage. We won't force a confrontation because someone wants to see an arrest happen quickly.”
Elena pressed her palms together. Daniel had spent five years looking for the truth about their father; now he was being moved like property through the very docks Rafael had protected.
Her phone rang from an unknown number. Leah signaled that the call should be handled with investigators present. Elena answered, hearing only the distant hum of machinery.
“Ellie?” Daniel's voice came through faintly. “Listen to me. I didn't give them the key. I hid it. Don't let him tell you I betrayed Dad.”
“Danny, I know,” she whispered. “I know you didn't. Tell me where you are, if you can. Please, just give us something.”
A second voice interrupted before Daniel could respond. Adrian sounded irritated rather than triumphant, like a man whose expensive plans were being spoiled by inconvenient people.
“Victor,” he said, “I know you're there. Bring yourself to the covered berth. Your waitress stays away, and the police stand down. Or the boy disappears.”
Victor reached for the telephone, but Elena kept it in her hand. She had listened to men make decisions about her family for long enough.
“His name is Daniel,” she told Adrian. “He isn't a bargaining chip. Whatever you want from Mr. Moretti, you leave my brother out of it.”
Adrian laughed once. “Your father said almost the same thing when he came looking for those shipping records. A noble habit. Not a particularly healthy one.”
Victor's face drained. The remark sounded too personal to be a bluff, and Elena saw him understand that Adrian remembered Rafael's final days in detail.
Leah silently passed a note across the table: KEEP HIM TALKING. Elena continued, though her throat burned with the effort of staying calm.
“Did you see my father before the fire?” she asked. The line remained silent, and for a second she thought Adrian had already ended the call.
“He came to the wrong person,” Adrian replied. “So have you. One hour, Elena. Then all these old questions become somebody else's problem.”
The call ended. Leah immediately coordinated the new information with investigators near the berth. Victor stood motionless beside the shelves, listening to a past he could no longer ignore.
At the River Crown, Adrian's corporate meeting was already unraveling. Lawyers representing several investors had suspended discussions after receiving formal notice of disputed authorizations and criminal inquiries.
The secondary dining-room recording had also been delivered securely to investigators. The image of Adrian concealing the box contradicted the story he had spread about Victor's breakdown.
An attorney at the River Crown reported that Adrian had stormed from the meeting, leaving behind unsigned documents and a room full of people demanding explanations.
For years Adrian had relied on Victor's feared reputation to make others obey. Now that same reputation could not save the contracts from questions supported by actual evidence.
Victor's personal phone began to ring. The caller was his daughter, Grace, who had learned about the mansion emergency through a worried relative in Albany.
At twenty-eight, Grace lived independently and worked at a children's clinic. She had loved her father all her life but avoided the business he refused to abandon.
“Dad, are you hurt?” she asked. He almost said no, then remembered the fall, the buried guilt, and the family he had nearly lost through stubbornness.
“I'm alive,” Victor answered. “Someone stopped me from making the last mistake of my life. There are other mistakes I haven't finished answering for.”
Grace went quiet. Then she asked whether he would finally cooperate with the authorities and stop protecting Adrian merely because they shared a childhood.
“Yes,” Victor said. “Whatever it costs me.” He heard her breathing on the other end and realized she was deciding whether she could believe him.
“I don't know what comes after that,” Grace replied. “But call me when this is over. Don't disappear behind another excuse.” Victor promised that he would.
Elena had overheard only a few words. Still, she recognized something in his voice that had not been present when the dinner began: a man afraid of disappointing someone he loved.
Leah's radio brought a new development. Officers near the covered berth had seen a boat illuminated from within, but they could not confirm whether Daniel remained aboard.
A technician reviewing nearby security recordings found images of a silver service van entering the area. Its registered owner was a contractor with multiple financial links to Adrian.
Marcus studied the images and pointed to the passenger-side window. A hand appeared against the glass for one frame, pressed open as though signaling to someone outside.
Elena knew that hand. Daniel had a small white scar along one knuckle from a childhood bicycle accident. She had bandaged it herself when she was fourteen.
“He's in the van,” she said. Leah examined the image carefully. The scar was difficult to verify, but the gesture and timing gave investigators another lead.
The officers tracked the van as it moved toward the ferry berth, where several vehicles appeared to be loading supplies. The scene suggested preparation for departure rather than routine maintenance.
“Adrian is running out of options,” Leah said. “That can make him less predictable, not more. We'll treat every new demand as a threat to Daniel's safety.”
Victor looked at Elena. “I will go if the detective believes it helps,” he told her. “But I won't trade your brother for a reckless show of courage.”
She studied him a moment, remembering how easily he had once sent Rafael away. “Then this time,” she said, “listen when somebody tells you what matters.”
A message arrived on Leah's secure radio. The silver van had stopped near the covered berth, and a young man had been seen stepping out between two escorts.
May you like
He turned toward a window in the maintenance building, just long enough for the camera to capture his face. Elena gripped the table when Leah showed her the image.
It was Daniel, alive beneath the harsh industrial lights, looking directly toward the river as though he believed somebody on the far bank might finally see him.
