Chapter 3 - The Eighth Language
By noon, nobody had found the person who sent the threat.
By one, Nari wished they would stop looking.
Franks Corporation had transformed from an expensive office into a fortress.
Phones were collected.
Security badges were audited.
Employees were interviewed one by one.
Alessio questioned senior staff personally.
Victor Hale appeared offended rather than frightened.
“I understand caution,” Victor said, standing in the conference room, “but locking executives on a floor because a consultant received an anonymous photograph is excessive.”
Nari sat across the table.
“Consultant?”
Victor glanced at her.
“Would you prefer cleaning lady?”
Alessio's gaze shifted.
Victor immediately smiled.
“A joke.”
“Try another,” Alessio said.
Victor's smile weakened.
Later, Nari confronted Alessio.
“You can't interrogate half a company because of me.”
“I can interrogate all of it.”
“That doesn't make it smart.”
Alessio poured himself coffee.
“People assume fear makes them careful. It doesn't. Fear makes them impatient.”
“And what are you waiting for?”
“A mistake.”
Nari thought about the Portuguese contract.
She had not told him.
Now she wondered why.
Maybe because she did not want Victor's arrogance to become a death sentence.
Maybe because she still did not fully understand the rules of Alessio's world.
“There was something,” she said.
His cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Yesterday.”
Nari explained the three-percent discrepancy.
Alessio set down the coffee.
“You were going to tell me when?”
“He corrected it.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“I didn't know whether it mattered.”
“Everything matters.”
His frustration surprised her.
“You hired me for languages, not spying.”
“I hired you because you notice what everyone else misses.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“It is in my world.”
Nari crossed her arms.
“I don't live in your world.”
Alessio looked at her for a long moment.
“You do now.”
She hated how much that sentence frightened her.
Security searched Victor's office.
The red deletion light came from an encrypted backup drive.
Victor explained it calmly.
“Automatic compliance purge.”
The IT director confirmed such a system existed.
But the deletion had been triggered manually.
Victor blamed an assistant.
The assistant denied touching it.
No proof.
No confession.
Nothing.
By evening, Alessio reluctantly reopened the building.
“You're staying somewhere else tonight,” he told Nari.
“I can't afford somewhere else.”
“You aren't paying.”
“Then no.”
He stared at her.
“What principle are we defending now?”
“The principle where I don't become financially dependent on a man whose security staff knows how to dispose of bodies.”
One guard coughed.
Alessio slowly turned toward him.
The man looked away.
Nari almost laughed.
“Fine,” Alessio said. “Company apartment.”
“No.”
“Hotel.”
“No.”
“My guest floor.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why is that worse?”
“Because you live there.”
He blinked.
Nari realized what she had said.
The room became painfully quiet.
Alessio's mouth moved.
“I'm flattered.”
“Don't be.”
“It's difficult.”
She picked up her bag.
“I'm going home.”
He stopped joking.
“Then Marco drives you.”
“One man.”
“One.”
“No sitting outside the building.”
“He'll park across the street.”
“Alessio.”
“Fine. Half a block.”
She sighed.
“I'm beginning to understand why people want to set your warehouses on fire.”
He smiled.
That evening Marco drove Nari home.
He was the guard with the broken nose.
He turned out to be unexpectedly talkative.
“You really speak eight?”
“Yes.”
“What languages?”
“Russian, French, Arabic, Italian, German, Mandarin, Portuguese, English.”
“Which is your favorite?”
“Silence.”
Marco laughed.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Nari turned toward him.
Marco accelerated.
“What happened?”
“Boss wants us back.”
“Why?”
“Navarro's people were attacked.”
Nari felt her stomach drop.
“Where?”
“Brooklyn.”
“By who?”
“Nobody knows.”
They returned to Manhattan.
Alessio was waiting.
Navarro had called furious.
Two trucks connected to his operation had been hijacked.
One driver was hospitalized.
A message had been left behind.
FIFTEEN WAS TOO GENEROUS.
Signed with Franks Corporation's initials.
“It wasn't us,” Alessio said.
Nari believed him.
Not because he was moral.
Because he looked genuinely angry.
“Navarro doesn't.”
“He wants a meeting.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Then call him.”
“He refuses English.”
Nari realized why she had been brought back.
“No.”
Alessio stared.
“You hired me to translate business. Not prevent gang wars every Thursday.”
“It isn't Thursday.”
She checked the clock.
“Friday by twelve minutes.”
Despite the situation, Marco looked away to hide a grin.
Alessio did not.
“Nari.”
“People got hurt.”
“Yes.”
“And you want me in the middle again.”
“I want someone Navarro trusts to understand him.”
“He doesn't trust me.”
“He respects you.”
“That might be worse.”
Alessio stepped closer.
“If we don't settle this tonight, people die tomorrow.”
Those words ended the argument.
An hour later, Navarro arrived with four men.
No handshakes.
No coffee.
He threw a photograph onto the table.
It showed one stolen truck burned beside a warehouse.
Navarro spoke rapidly.
Nari translated.
“He says you violated the agreement.”
“I didn't.”
Navarro replied.
“He says your initials were left at the scene.”
“Anybody can write initials.”
Navarro laughed without humor.
Then he said something else.
Nari frowned.
“What?”
Alessio asked.
“He says one attacker spoke Italian.”
Alessio became still.
Navarro continued.
Nari's eyes narrowed.
“Not standard Italian.”
“What kind?”
“Calabrian.”
Marco swore softly.
Alessio understood immediately.
“The Bellandi family.”
Navarro watched their reaction.
“Who are they?” Nari asked.
“Competitors.”
“Genoa?”
“Among other places.”
Nari remembered the original negotiation.
If Navarro lost the route, Italians would take his place.
Someone wanted Franks and Navarro fighting.
Then both sides would weaken.
She translated Alessio's explanation.
Navarro listened.
Skeptical.
Then one of his men muttered under his breath.
Italian.
He clearly did not realize Nari understood.
“Let them blame each other. By tomorrow this is finished.”
Nari's eyes snapped toward him.
The man froze.
She answered him in Italian.
“Finished for whom?”
Silence.
Navarro slowly turned toward his lieutenant.
Alessio stared.
“What did he say?”
Nari did not look away from the man.
“He said to let you blame each other.”
The lieutenant reached inside his jacket.
Marco moved first.
A gun appeared.
Chairs scraped.
Navarro shouted.
Alessio grabbed Nari by the arm and pulled her behind him.
“Don't move.”
The lieutenant froze with three weapons aimed at his chest.
Navarro's face turned murderous.
He barked an order.
The man was searched.
A second phone was found.
Then a folded paper.
Nari read it.
Italian.
Payment instructions.
A number.
A meeting location.
Initials.
V.H.
Nari looked up.
Victor Hale.
Alessio's expression hardened.
Navarro exploded in French.
Nari translated automatically.
“He says your own man is selling you.”
Alessio stared at the paper.
Then at Nari.
“Where is Victor?”
Marco checked his phone.
His face changed.
“Gone.”
“What does that mean?”
“Security says he left twenty minutes ago.”
Alessio turned toward the door.
“Find him.”
Nari looked again at the payment sheet.
At the bottom was a final line.
A shipment number.
And a time.
4:30 A.M.
“What is it?” Alessio asked.
“This isn't just payment.”
She pointed.
“These are container identifiers.”
“So?”
“I've seen these before.”
“Where?”
“Victor's Portuguese contract.”
Alessio leaned closer.
Nari traced the numbers.
“He isn't only working with your competitors.”
She swallowed.
“He's moving something tonight.”
Alessio's eyes turned cold.
“What?”
Nari stared at the code.
For once, knowing eight languages was not enough.
But numbers had their own grammar.
And Nari suddenly realized the container codes did not represent cargo.
They represented locations.
One of them was the Jersey warehouse.
The same warehouse Navarro had nearly burned.
She looked up.
“Alessio…”
“What?”
“I think Victor has been planning this longer than I’ve worked here.”
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And three floors below them, in a private elevator, Victor Hale was already carrying a detonator.
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