Chapter 5 - The North End Corridor
The van ride to the North End was silent. Sullivan had given her the keys without a word when she showed him the bank receipt, his old eyes filling with tears as he looked at the stamp that meant his father’s diner would stay in his family for another generation.
Jack sat in the passenger seat, his long legs cramped into the small space under the dashboard. The babies were back in their carrier, strapped to his chest like a living shield. His face was gray with the strain of the move, but he hadn't asked for the sherry, and he hadn't let go of the black pistol that sat between his knees.
"You're not Jack," Elara said as she steered the van through the narrow, twisting streets of Boston’s oldest neighborhood. The buildings here were taller, older, their red brick faces darkened by a hundred years of coal soot and salt air.
"My name is Cassius," he said, not looking at her. "Cassius Vale. My grandfather built the third pier down at the port. My father died in a room that smelled like old leather and maritime court."
"And the Moreau people?"
"They want the piers," Cassius said, his hand going to the baby girl's head, his long fingers smoothing her dark hair down against her skull. "The North End is the only deep-water port on the Atlantic that isn't controlled by a federal cartel. If Moreau takes it, he can bring forty tons of uncut white through the mouth of the bay without a customs inspector looking at the manifest."
"And your wife?" Elara asked, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.
"She wasn't my wife," Cassius said, his voice dropping into a flat, metallic register that told her the subject was closed. "She was a Grace. Her family owned the timber lines in Maine before the banks took them. She died in Zurich because she thought she could run from the ledger. She was wrong. No one runs from the ledger."
The van slowed as they reached a high stone wall that ran down to the water’s edge. Behind the iron gates stood the Vale estate—a massive, four-story fortress of dark gray granite that looked less like a home and more like a custom-built prison. The windows on the ground floor were covered in heavy iron grates, and two men in dark suits stood by the entrance lane, their hands inside their coats as the van approached.
The gate slid open with a heavy, mechanical groan.
"Drive straight to the carriage house, Elara," Cassius said, his body shifting as he prepared to stand. "The main house has been swept for audio devices, but the carriage house is still on the independent line. That’s where we stay until Julian gets back from Chicago."
"Who’s Julian?"
"My driver," Cassius said, his blue eyes turning toward her as the van stopped under the stone archway. "The man who was supposed to be at the diner last night before Victor Vance found the car."
An older woman in a severe gray dress met them at the door of the carriage house. Her hair was pulled back into a bun so tight it made her eyes look sharp, but when she saw the two babies strapped to Cassius’s chest, her face broke into something that looked like relief.
"Mr. Vale," the woman said, curtsying once with the professional indifference of an old servant. "The east room is ready. The doctor from the port authority is waiting."
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"The doctor can go back to the docks, Mrs. Gable," Cassius said, stepping down from the van with a small, sharp groan as his ribs shifted. "I brought my own nurse. She knows how to extract a bullet without asking for an insurance card."
He turned back to Elara, his long black coat catching the wind from the bay. "Go upstairs with Mrs. Gable, Elara. Change into your scrubs. Your shift started ten minutes ago."
