Chapter 6 - The Interview at Pier NineteenThe headquarters of Moretti Global Logistics did not look like a shipping office.
It looked like a fortress disguised as a corporate monolith. Located at the edge of Pier Nineteen, the building was a towering structure of dark glass and reinforced steel that overlooked the churning, dark waters of the Delaware River.
Tessa stood in front of the massive glass doors, smoothing down her only interview outfit—a charcoal-gray blazer she had bought secondhand three years ago. Her shoes were brand new. No electrical tape. No sucking sound against the floor.
She walked inside.
The lobby was a cavernous expanse of polished marble and minimalist art. A receptionist with hair pulled back into a severe bun looked up from her desk as Tessa approached.
"Tessa Bell," Tessa said clearly. "I have an appointment with Mr. Moretti."
The receptionist didn't even check a computer. She simply pressed a button on her desk phone.
"Send her up to the penthouse," a voice crackled through the intercom—Frank Delaney.
The private elevator rose with terrifying speed, the digital floor numbers climbing past twenty, thirty, thirty-five, until it chimed softly at the top.
When the doors slid open, Tessa stepped out into a sprawling, glass-walled office that offered a panoramic view of the entire Philadelphia skyline.
Matteo Moretti stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a crystal glass of amber whiskey. He wore a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the pale scar across his knuckle and the dense, dark muscle of his arms.
"You came," Matteo said, not turning around immediately.
"You offered a salary that pays my medical debt in three months," Tessa replied, walking forward and stopping ten feet away. "I’d be a bad philologist if I couldn't recognize a lucrative proposition."
Matteo turned, his dark eyes scanning her from head to toe with an appraising, calculating gaze.
"Frank checked your background," Matteo said, walking toward a large mahogany desk covered in thick, leather-bound ledgers and shipping manifests written in faded nineteenth-century ink. "Top of your class in Florence. Published a paper on Dante’s political exile when you were twenty-two. And then your mother got sick, the university turned its back, and you ended up scrubbing tables at Bellaforte."
"Life edits our CVs," Tessa said without a trace of self-pity.
Matteo picked up one of the heavy leather ledgers and dropped it onto the desk with a dull thud. Dust rose into the air, smelling of old paper, dried ink, and forgotten secrets.
"These are shipping manifests from my grandfather’s original import business," Matteo said. "Dating from 1954 to 1968. Most of them are written in a mix of Neapolitan dialect, archaic maritime terminology, and encrypted Italian code. The authorities think they're just normal cargo logs. I think they contain the location of accounts my father’s rivals tried to bury thirty years ago."
Tessa stepped closer to the desk, her eyes fixed on the faded handwriting.
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"And you want me to translate them?"
"I want you to tell me what my family hid," Matteo said, his voice dropping to a low, intense register. "And I want to know who is still trying to find it."
