Chapter 5 - The Trap at Teterboro
A heavy, low-lying fog hung over the tarmac at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey as the sun began to rise over the horizon, painting the sky in pale shades of orange and grey.
A sleek, black Gulfstream jet taxied to a halt near an isolated hangar at the edge of the runway. The stairwell lowered, and Antonio Russo—a barrel-chested man in his fifties with a thick dark mustache and an expensive cashmere overcoat—stepped down onto the damp asphalt, flanked by four armed bodyguards.
Waiting on the tarmac stood Arthur Vance, his suit rumpled, his hands trembling violently as he stood beside two dark SUVs.
"Arthur!" Russo called out in Italian, walking toward him with open arms. "You made this happen faster than I expected! Where are the transfer deeds for the deep-water piers?"
Vance didn't answer. He couldn't speak; his jaw was locked in terror.
Russo stopped five feet away, his instincts suddenly flaring. He looked at Vance’s sweating face, then looked at the dark windows of the SUVs.
"Where are your men, Arthur?" Russo demanded, his hand moving toward his coat pocket.
"They aren't his men, Antonio," I said, opening the door of the lead SUV and stepping out into the morning fog.
Russo’s eyes widened as I stepped into the open. Behind me, sixteen Moretti enforcers emerged from the surrounding hangars, their automatic weapons trained directly on Russo and his men.
"Moretti..." Russo gasped, taking a step back toward his jet.
"Drop your weapons!" Dominic roared, stepping out from behind the second SUV with a heavy assault rifle leveled at Russo’s lead bodyguard.
The four Camorra bodyguards looked around at the overwhelming force surrounding them. Realizing they were completely boxed in with zero chance of survival, they slowly lowered their handguns to the wet asphalt, raising their hands in the air.
Russo stood alone in the center of the tarmac, his breathing heavy and ragged. "Marco... this is a misunderstanding. Vance told me—"
"Vance told me everything," I interrupted, walking up to Russo until I was standing two feet away from the man who had ordered the hit on my wife. "He told me about the payments. He told me about the clinic in Ravello. He told me how you thought you could take New York by butchering a mother and her child."
Russo tried to maintain his arrogant scowl, but his eyes betrayed his panic. "You can't kill me, Moretti! The commission in Italy will tear your family apart! If I don't return to Naples—"
"The commission in Italy already knows," I cut in coldly. "Two hours ago, I sent the audio recordings of Vance’s confession, along with the bank wire records, to the heads of the Five Families in Rome. They don't respect traitors, Antonio. They’ve already seized your assets in Naples."
Russo’s face went dead white. The empire he had spent thirty years building had vanished into thin air before sunrise.
"What... what are you going to do with me?" Russo whispered, his voice trembling.
I looked at Dominic. "Hand them over to the federal authorities. We have three years of encrypted wiretaps, offshore banking logs, and Vance’s sworn confession detailing foreign conspiracy, racketeering, and attempted murder."
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Russo stared at me in shock. "You're... you're giving us to the feds? You're a mob boss! You don't call the police!"
"I used to be just a mob boss, Antonio," I said, turning my back on him and walking toward my SUV. "But today, I'm a father who has to go home to his son. And I'm making sure you spend the rest of your natural life rotting in a federal cage where you can never hurt my family again."
