“Stay close to me,” he said finally. “Do exactly as I say.”

He reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a sleek black handgun, and tucked it into his waistband.

We walked out of the study and down the dimly lit hallway of his penthouse.

The elevator ride to the secure underground garage was silent.

We got into the back of his heavily armored black SUV, and his driver immediately pulled out into the wet, dark night.

The city lights smeared across the wet glass like melted wax.

“How did Vanessa Hale get into the docks?” I asked, looking at Dante’s profile.

“She has connections with the port authority,” Dante said, tapping his fingers on his knee. “But that is not the important part.”

He pulled a tablet from the seat pocket in front of him and unlocked the screen.

“My contacts in the banking sector finally came through with the older records,” he said, handing the tablet to me.

I took it, my fingers trembling slightly as I looked at the scanned bank documents.

They were wire transfers, dated three years ago.