THE MAFIA BOSS ENTERE.D THE PRIVATE DRYDOCK AS A BANKING HEIRESS SHREDDED HIS CHIEF ENGINEER'S COAT—THEN WHISPERED TO THE PORT DIRECTOR, “PULL A CHAIR FOR MY WIFE BEFORE I REVOKE YOUR HARBOR CHARTER.” / Chapter 2 / 15

Chapter 2 - The Marsh-Rotten CoffinThe private salon fell into a vacuum of noise, the distant muffled thud of the Boardwalk casino bass reduced to a dull, rhythmic pulse beneath our feet. Outside the reinforced windows, the Atlantic tide rolled in heavy against the pilings of Atlantic City, bringing with it the smell of rotting kelp and low-tide brine.

Serena’s diamonds glittered under the chandelier, but her chest heaved beneath her silk bodice like a trapped bird's.

“My father’s corpse,” I repeated, the words tasting like cold iron. “The man you claim wore that ring after my father died. Or perhaps you meant the man you paid to saw the brass lid off a copper-lined casket six months after the funeral.”

Serena swallowed hard, her manicured fingers digging into the plush fabric of the wingback chair she had retreated behind.

“You think you own the inlet, Dante,” she whispered, her voice tightening into a defensive hiss. “You think because you locked a box in twenty fathoms of water that the past stays drowned. But the world has shifted. The commission doesn't answer to the Moretti family name anymore. My father controls the maritime appellate board. He holds the zoning permits for every commercial berth from Cape May to Sandy Hook. If that ring opens the offshore ledger at dawn, your entire shipping monopoly reverts to the state—and straight into our hands.”

I didn't blink. I didn't raise my voice.

“You talk about the offshore ledger as if it's a municipal tax form,” I said quietly, stepping around the baize-covered table.

With two fingers, I picked up the velvet box, closing the lid over the screaming falcon signet. The leather was damp. Not from humidity in the room. From the mineral-heavy, brackish ooze of the salt marshes behind the inlet.

The box hadn't been in a safe. It had been buried in the mud.

“Maya,” I said without looking back.

“Sir?” the young server answered, her voice shaking.

“Go to the pantry. Tell the head chef to hand over his master key to the dry-dock refrigeration warehouse. Then take the freight elevator down to the shoreline tunnel and wait by the secondary sluice gate.”

Maya blinked through her tears. “The... the sluice gate, sir? Alone?”

“You won't be alone long. My personal detail is securing the perimeter. If anyone approaches that tunnel while you're there, scream.”

Maya nodded once, wiped her face with her apron sleeve, and slipped out through the service door like a ghost.

I turned my attention back to Serena.

She thought she held all the cards because her father, Judge Arthur Thorne, had a dozen city magistrates in his pocket. She thought a fabricated theft charge against a terrified servant would provide the clean legal paper trail needed to authenticate a stolen heirloom before the probate court opened at nine o'clock.

She forgot one fundamental law of the Atlantic coast.

Legal paper is only as durable as the person holding the pen.

“You’re shaking, Serena,” I observed, walking closer until the scent of her expensive French perfume mixed with the metallic tang of fear.

“I am not afraid of you,” she lied, though her knees knocked against the mahogany chair leg. “My father’s enforcers are parked outside in three unmarked cruisers. If I don't walk out of this casino in twenty minutes, they kick down the front doors.”

“Let them try,” I murmured. “They’ll find the front doors locked. And by the time they figure out how to cut through six inches of reinforced steel, you’ll already be watching the tide go out from the bottom of the dry dock.”

Serena’s jaw dropped. “You wouldn't—”

“Try me.”

I walked past her toward the heavy double doors of the private salon, sliding the velvet box into the inside pocket of my wool coat.

“Guard her,” I told the two silent capos standing post in the hallway. “If she touches a telephone, break her wrist. If she breathes too loudly, sedate her.”

I stepped out into the glittering chaos of the Boardwalk casino, my mind racing through the logistics of the night. If the Moretti family seal had been exhumed from the family crypt, it meant someone inside the inner circle—someone who knew the exact depth of the Atlantic trench where the key was dropped—had sold us out.