Chapter 15 - THE EXCHANGE
Mara refused to be hidden in a safe house while Preston was held.
Matteo hated that.
Progress came in strange forms.
Thorne demanded she meet him at an abandoned rail terminal in Queens with the original ledger.
Chen built the operation.
Mara wore a wire.
Matteo waited in a surveillance van three blocks away.
"If I say leave, you leave," Chen told him.
"I'm terrible with instructions."
"Learn tonight."
Mara entered the terminal carrying a decoy case.
Preston was tied to a chair.
Victor stood beside him with a gun.
Senator Richard Thorne looked almost relaxed.
"Eleanor's daughter," he said. "Always more stubborn than practical."
"You killed my mother."
"Victor frightened your mother. Foster made mistakes."
"That's your version?"
"History belongs to whoever survives long enough to file it."
Mara wanted to hit him.
"And my father?"
"Protected because Carlo Bellandi became sentimental."
"You killed Carlo."
Thorne smiled.
"I solved a problem."
In the van, Matteo heard every word.
Chen touched his shoulder.
"Stay here."
Inside, Victor opened the case.
"She's wired."
Everything broke at once.
Preston kicked the chair sideways.
Mara ran behind a concrete pillar.
Gunfire cracked.
Police flooded the terminal.
Victor fired toward Mara.
Preston threw himself between them.
The bullet hit him high in the shoulder.
Thorne ran for the rear exit.
Matteo saw him emerge from the terminal and started toward the door of the van.
Chen shouted, "Don't."
For one second, vengeance and restraint stood on opposite sides of his face.
Then Matteo stayed.
Police tackled Thorne fifty yards later.
Victor disappeared into the rail tunnels.
And when Mara reached Preston, bleeding on the floor, he whispered one sentence.
"Victor isn't running from us."
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"What?"
"He's going after the baby records."
