Chapter Three: Salvatore Cosa
865 Words
Isabella's entire body locked into place.
The cell door didn't slide open. Nothing moved in the doorway. But the lock had disengaged, she'd heard it clearly, that distinctive electronic click that had sealed her into this cell not two hours ago now undone in the dark, and Salvatore's warning still hung in the air between them.
Long seconds passed. She counted them, needing something to hold onto besides the fear crawling up her spine. Ten seconds. Twenty. The corridor outside stayed silent except for the distant hum of fluorescent lights and someone's radio playing low several cells down.
Above her, the bunk frame creaked. Salvatore moved with a silence that seemed impossible for a man his size, dropping down from the top bunk without a sound, positioning himself between Isabella and the door.
"What's happening?" she breathed.
"Someone's testing the lock system," he said, voice barely audible. "Checking if it's remote controlled tonight or manual."
"Testing it for what?"
He didn't answer. Instead he moved to the door, pressed two fingers against the bars, and waited. Isabella realized, with a jolt of understanding, that he wasn't afraid. He was calculating.
After what felt like an eternity, the lock re-engaged with the same soft click, sealing them back in. Salvatore's shoulders dropped a fraction, tension releasing that she hadn't fully registered until it was gone.
"That happens a lot?" she asked.
"Not to everyone." He returned to the bunk but didn't climb up right away, standing in the thin strip of moonlight coming through the small window near the ceiling, arms crossed. "Someone wanted to know if I'd react to an unlocked door in the middle of the night. Probably wanted to see if I'd try something stupid they could report."
"Why would they want that?"
"Because men like me are worth more to certain people locked up than acquitted." He said it flatly, without self pity, like he was reciting a fact from a textbook rather than describing his own life. "There are people on the outside who'd rather I stay exactly where I am. And people in here who get paid to make sure of it."
Isabella pushed herself up onto her elbows, studying him in the dim light. "You said your name like it was supposed to mean something to me."
"It should."
"I'm an auditor. Was an auditor. I read compliance memos, not organized crime bulletins."
That earned her the faintest ghost of a smile, gone almost before it arrived. "Fair enough. Cosa family. My father ran a significant portion of the East Coast import business for almost three decades before he passed it to me. Legitimate businesses on paper. Less legitimate businesses underneath."
"And you're in here because"
"Because the federal government finally found a piece of paper with my signature on it that they liked better than the others." His jaw tightened slightly. "Racketeering. Conspiracy. A list of charges long enough to keep me here for a very long time, if the appeal doesn't work."
"Doesn't work how?"
He looked at her for a long moment, something calculating behind his eyes, like he was deciding how much of the truth she'd earned in one evening.
"I didn't sign that document," he said finally. "It was manufactured. Someone very good at forgery, working for someone very interested in me being exactly where I am right now."
Isabella's stomach dropped, an uncomfortable, unwelcome recognition settling over her. "That's what happened to me."
His eyes sharpened. "Explain."
"Doctored records. A shell company I flagged during an audit. By the time it went to trial, six years of paperwork had my signature on transactions I never authorized." Her voice shook slightly, the injustice of it still raw even after weeks of repeating it to herself. "Nobody believed me. Why would they. The evidence was right there."
For a long moment, Salvatore said nothing. Then he crossed the cell, crouched down so he was level with her on the bunk, close enough that she could see the faint scar cutting through one eyebrow, close enough that his presence filled the entire small space.
"What was the company," he asked quietly. "The one you flagged."
"Vantage Logistics. Why does that matter"
Something shifted behind his eyes, dark and immediate, a recognition she didn't understand yet but that clearly meant something enormous to him.
"Say that again," he said, and his voice had gone dangerously quiet.
"Vantage Logistics. It's a shipping and freight company, I was auditing their books when I found"
"That company," Salvatore said slowly, "is owned by the family that put me in this cell."
The words hung in the small space between them like something physical. Isabella felt the blood drain from her face.
"That's not possible," she whispered. "That's has to be a coincidence."
Salvatore's expression had gone perfectly still, the kind of stillness she was already learning meant he was thinking faster and more dangerously than his face let on.
"Marchetti," he said. "I don't believe in coincidences. Not in here. Not with that name."
Somewhere down the corridor, a cell door slammed shut with violent force, and a man's voice rose in a scream that cut off abruptly into silence.
- Writer
