Chapter 5: The Morning Drop
The rain had tapered off into a persistent, freezing drizzle by the time we left the high-rise and drove down toward the industrial fringe of the city. Alessandro drove himself, his hands gripping the steering wheel with practiced ease while I checked the rearview mirror every few blocks for trailing vehicles. The city looked gray and washed out, stripped of the amber warmth and candlelight that had framed the disaster of the previous evening. My red silk dress had been replaced by a dark wool trench coat and heavy leather boots, practical armor for a city that suddenly felt entirely hostile.
"The drop point is an old freight depot near the river," Alessandro said, his eyes scanning the empty loading docks ahead. "If the waitress’s handler is running the operation from the municipal side, he’ll have physical copies of the original Bordeaux ledgers stored in a neutral locker."
"And if he's not there?" I asked, pulling my coat tighter against the draft coming through the window.
"Then we find whoever authorized the archive fire fourteen years ago," Alessandro replied simply, pulling the car into the shadow of a corrugated steel warehouse and cutting the engine.
The air inside the depot was damp and smelled of rust, stagnant water, and old cardboard. We walked side by side down the center aisle of the cavernous storage facility, our footsteps echoing off the concrete floor. Rows of gray metal lockers stretched into the dim shadows overhead, lit only by flickering fluorescent tubes that hummed with a high-pitched whine. Alessandro moved with the silent, balanced grace of a man who was entirely comfortable in spaces where the law did not reach.
We stopped in front of locker 404. It was secured with a heavy brass padlock that bore no serial numbers, only a small, deeply etched stamp of a coiled serpent—the exact crest I had seen in Saint-Quentin years ago.
"Step back," Alessandro murmured, drawing a small, matte-black keycard from his pocket. He didn't use a crowbar or a pick; he pressed the card against the electronic housing beside the latch, overriding the security system with a soft, electronic chime.
The heavy steel door swung open smoothly on oiled hinges. Inside, there was no digital server or stack of modern files. Sitting alone on the metal shelf was a single, leather-bound ledger identical in size and weight to the menu from the restaurant, its spine cracked and faded with age, bearing the handwritten label: Bordeaux — 1972.
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I reached out slowly, my gloved fingertips brushing the worn leather binding. The trap was real, the evidence was tangible, and the past had finally caught up to the present. Before I could lift the ledger from the shelf, a sharp click echoed from the far end of the aisle—the unmistakable sound of a hammer cocking on a firearm.
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