Chapter 4 - The Traitor’s Gambit
By Friday evening, twenty-four hours before the scheduled wedding, Baltimore was under a severe gale warning. High winds whipped rain across the brick alleyways of the city, turning the harbor into a churning cauldron of black water.
At the Bellandi estate in Roland Park, panic had taken root.
Inside the lavish, mahogany-paneled library, Don Dominic Bellandi—a ruthless sixty-year-old man with silver hair, sharp features, and cold gray eyes—paced furiously before a blazing fireplace.
Sitting on the leather sofa, her face pale and her knuckles white, was Vanessa. Marcus stood near the bar, pouring his third glass of double scotch with a trembling hand.
“He knows,” Marcus hissed, his voice laced with frantic energy. “I told you we should have finished that bitch in the alley! She took the photo! She took the signet ring!”
“Shut up, Marcus!” Dominic roared, turning on his son with terrifying fury. “You let a bloody secretary outmaneuver you in my own house! You let her walk out with the evidence that links us to Ethan Hale’s death!”
“It doesn't matter,” Vanessa said coldly, standing up, her silk dress rustling in the quiet room. “Desmond canceled the wedding. He called me personally. He knows everything, Father. He gave us forty-eight hours to leave the city.”
Dominic let out a harsh, cruel laugh. “Leave the city? This is my harbor! The Hales are weak! Desmond is a bureaucrat who thinks he’s a mobster because he wears four-thousand-dollar suits! He doesn't have his brother’s stomach for blood!”
“You're underestimating him, Father,” Vanessa warned, her voice dropping into a desperate whisper. “I spent two years sitting beside that man. When Desmond Hale is quiet, he’s dangerous. He’s not going to the police. He’s coming for us.”
Dominic walked over to his grand mahogany desk, leaning his heavy hands against the wood.
“The weapons freighter from Naples docks at Pier Twelve tonight at midnight,” Dominic said, his gray eyes narrowing with murderous intent. “Five hundred fully automatic rifles and three hundred kilos of pure product. It’s worth thirty million dollars.”
“If Desmond knows about the crash, he knows about the shipment,” Marcus pointed out. “He’ll try to seize it or destroy it to ruin us financially.”
“Let him try,” Dominic smirked, a cruel, ugly expression sweeping over his aged face. “He thinks he’s walking into an ambush on his terms. Call Captain Mercer at the precinct. Tell him we have an anonymous tip that Desmond Hale is hijacking a cargo ship at Pier Twelve tonight. Bring three tactical units.”
Dominic poured himself a glass of whiskey, holding it up to the light of the fire.
“We won't even have to shoot Desmond ourselves,” Dominic whispered darkly. “The police will do it for us when he resists arrest. And by sunrise tomorrow, the Hale empire will belong to the Bellandis.”
Vanessa stared at her father, a flicker of hesitation crossing her face. But the greed and dark ambition that had been bred into her since childhood quickly snuffed it out.
“What about the secretary?” Vanessa asked. “Nora Reed?”
Marcus smiled, a sickening, twisted expression. “I’ve already got two guys watching every hospital and private clinic in the city. When she shows her face to get that arm patched up, she’s dead.”
Meanwhile, across town at the Hale tactical facility, Desmond was putting on a tactical bulletproof vest over his black long-sleeved shirt.
Vance stepped into the room, holding an encrypted satellite tablet.
“Boss,” Vance said, his face grim. “Our wiretaps on the Bellandi estate picked up a call to Captain Mercer at the Central Narcotics Division. Dominic is tipping off the tactical unit. They’re setting a trap at Pier Twelve. The cops will be waiting in the shadows to take us out the moment we step on the dock.”
Desmond tightened the straps of his vest, his face completely devoid of surprise.
“I expected nothing less from Dominic,” Desmond said calmly, picking up his Kimber .45 and checking the magazine. “He’s used the police as his personal hit squad for a decade.”
“So we cancel the raid?” Vance asked. “We pull back?”
“No,” Desmond said, slipping his gun into his tactical holster. “We don't cancel anything. We just change the venue.”
Desmond turned to look at the tablet screen showing the live GPS tracking of the incoming freighter, The Mediterranean Star, currently making its way through the stormy waters of the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore harbor.
“Dominic thinks the play is on the dock,” Desmond said, a dark, brilliant smile cutting across his face. “He thinks he’s going to watch from his warm luxury box in the harbor office while the police kill us.”
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Desmond pulled a pair of heavy leather tactical gloves onto his hands.
“We aren't meeting them on the dock, Vance,” Desmond declared. “We’re taking the boat before it ever touches the pier.”
