Chapter 5 - Fire on Pier Twelve
At eleven o'clock on Saturday night, a thick, freezing fog rolled off the Newark Bay, enveloping Pier Twelve in a wall of gray mist.
Huge steel shipping containers were stacked three stories high along the dock, their rusted surfaces dripping with condensation. The yellow floodlights mounted on the high crane towers cast long, eerie beams across the slick concrete floor.
Parked near the edge of the slip were four black Mercedes SUVs.
Standing beside the lead vehicle was Ricardo Moretti, wearing a thick wool coat over his three-piece suit, his silver hair glittering with moisture in the dim light. Surrounding him were eight heavily armed men—his personal security team, led by a scarred enforcer named Gianni.
Out in the dark water, the low, deep chug of a container vessel’s diesel engines echoed through the fog.
The Adriatic Star was slowly backing into the slip, its thick mooring ropes being thrown to the dock workers on the pier.
“Keep your eyes open,” Ricardo commanded into his radio, his voice sharp with nervous excitement. “The moment those three crates hit the flatbed, we escort them directly to Queens. No stops. No delays.”
Gianni nodded, checking the magazine on his suppressed automatic weapon. “What about the harbor police?”
“Captain Mercer was paid two hundred thousand dollars this afternoon,” Ricardo smirked, taking a slow sip from a silver flask. “The harbor patrol won't come within two miles of Pier Twelve tonight.”
Suddenly, the heavy metal door of a shipping container ten yards behind Ricardo’s SUV swung open with a loud, screeching tear of rusted iron.
CREEEAAAK.
Ricardo spun around, his hand instinctively reaching into his coat. “Who’s there?!”
Out from the dark interior of the shipping container stepped six men.
They weren't harbor workers. They were the veteran captains of the Moretti family’s executive guard—the men who had served Dominic’s father twenty years ago, led by Frank Corsa, a terrifying, scarred veteran who had been thought to be retired in Florida.
Every one of them was holding a tactical shotgun pointed directly at Ricardo’s chest.
“What is the meaning of this?!” Ricardo roared, stepping back toward his enforcers. “Frank! Have you lost your mind?! I am running the family!”
“You were running it, Ricardo,” a deep, iconic voice resonated through the fog from behind the shipping containers.
Ricardo’s blood turned to ice.
Out from the shadow of the massive gantry crane walked a figure.
He was not in a wheelchair.
Dominic Moretti walked slowly out onto the concrete dock. He wore a dark, tailored coat, his posture tall, erect, and imposing. He leaned slightly on a heavy oak walking stick held in his right hand, his stride deliberate, slow, but completely firm.
Beside him walked four more loyal Moretti soldiers, their weapons drawn.
Ricardo stared at his nephew, his jaw dropping open in absolute, ruinous horror. His silver flask slipped from his fingers, clattering against the wet concrete.
“Dominic...” Ricardo gasped, his voice cracking. “You... you’re walking...”
“Disappointed?” Dominic asked softly, stopping ten feet from his uncle. His dark eyes burned with an ancient, murderous light under the floodlights.
“Dominic, listen to me!” Ricardo stammered, backing against his Mercedes, his hands shaking wildly. “This... this is a misunderstanding! I came here to oversee the delivery for you! To protect your interests!”
Dominic reached into his coat and pulled out the black leather ledger, tossing it onto the hood of Ricardo’s car with a heavy THUD.
“Panama account 884,” Dominic said, his voice flat, razor-sharp, and final. “Four million dollars transferred to the Bellandis sixteen days before my SUV was ambushed in Manhattan.”
Ricardo’s face drained of all color. He looked at the ledger, then looked into his nephew’s cold, unyielding eyes.
“You sold me out to Marco Bellandi’s brothers,” Dominic continued, taking a slow step closer, his walking stick clicking against the ground. “You bought the ammunition that put three bullets into my spine. You thought I would rot in that wheelchair while you signed away my father’s empire.”
Gianni, Ricardo’s head enforcer, suddenly raised his weapon, aiming directly for Dominic’s chest.
POP!
Before Gianni could pull the trigger, a single suppressed shot rang out from the high crane tower above.
Gianni dropped his gun, clutching his shoulder as he collapsed to his knees, screaming in pain. Frank Corsa’s team instantly swarmed Ricardo’s remaining enforcers, disarming them and forcing them to their knees on the wet dock within ten seconds flat.
Dominic walked right up to his uncle. He reached out, his broad hand grabbing Ricardo by the lapels of his expensive wool coat, pinning the sixty-seven-year-old traitor against the side of the SUV.
“I gave you my respect,” Dominic whispered into Ricardo’s ear, his tone dropping into a terrifying hush. “I let you sit at my father’s table. And you sold my blood for four million dollars.”
“Dominic... please...” Ricardo wept, tears of pure terror streaming down his wrinkled face. “I raised you! I brought you food! Don't kill me!”
Dominic stared at his uncle’s trembling, pathetic face.
For eleven weeks, he had been consumed by a dark desire for vengeance—a desire to tear down everyone who had betrayed him. But sitting on his rehab floor two days ago, holding a little girl's wooden toy, something had shifted inside him.
He wasn't going to turn into a monster to destroy a traitor.
Dominic released his grip, shoving Ricardo backward against the car.
“Killing you would be too merciful, Uncle,” Dominic said coldly.
He turned his head slightly toward Frank Corsa.
“Frank,” Dominic commanded. “Call Federal Prosecutor Vance. Tell him Don Moretti has a complete dossier on thirty years of illegal Bellandi maritime trafficking, signed wire authorizations, and five living witnesses.”
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Ricardo gasped, his eyes wide with horror. “Federal prison?! Dominic, I’ll die in there!”
“Then die,” Dominic said, turning his back on his uncle and walking away through the fog. “And tell the Bellandis... the Moretti family is under new management.”
