Chapter 9 - The Waterfront Ambush
The room began to spin violently beneath my feet.
The air in my lungs turned to shards of broken glass.
My mother.
My sick, fragile mother who could barely walk from the bedroom to the kitchen without gasping for breath.
Those monsters had kicked down the door of our tiny apartment in Sunset Park and dragged her into the freezing rain like a piece of meat.
"No... no, no, no," I gasped, my knees giving out completely.
I hit the Persian rug, clutching my head in my hands, dry sobs tearing through my throat.
"She needs her dialysis," I choked out, looking up at Vincent with wide, manic eyes.
"She has an automated cycler!"
"If the fluid balance isn't maintained, her potassium levels will spike within ninety minutes!"
"Her heart will stop, Mr. Caruso!"
"They are going to murder my mother because I helped yours!"
Vincent Caruso moved across the room in a blur of motion.
He dropped to one knee before me, his massive hands reaching out to grip my shoulders with an intensity that anchored my spinning world back to solid ground.
"Look at me, Lucy," Vincent commanded.
His voice was not the cold roar of a mob boss, nor was it the gentle murmur he used with his mother.
It was the steady, absolute tone of a general who had survived a hundred sieges and never surrendered an inch of territory.
"Look into my eyes," he repeated firmly.
I forced my tear-blurred gaze to lock onto his dark, fathomless irises.
"Your mother is not going to die tonight," Vincent said, every syllable hammered into the air like iron spikes.
"You held my mother’s hand when the world went dark."
"You bled on this floor to keep the bullets off her chest."
"The Caruso family does not leave debts unpaid."
"I swear to you on my life, Lucy, I will bring your mother back to you alive before the sun comes up over that bridge."
"And I will rip Marcus Vance’s heart out of his chest with my bare hands for touching her."
Eleanor stood up from her chair, walking over to place a trembling, resolute hand on top of Vincent’s head.
"Listen to him, Lucy," Eleanor whispered, her voice ringing with the unbreakable pride of a mafia matriarch.
"My son has done many terrible things in his life."
"He has broken laws, and he has spilled blood."
"But Vincent Caruso has never broken a vow to a woman he swore to protect."
"He will bring your mother home."
Vincent rose to his feet, pulling me up with him with effortless strength.
"Marco!" Vincent barked.
The head of security appeared in the doorway instantly, a combat headset already strapped around his ears.
"Boss?"
"Call the docks," Vincent commanded, striding toward the hidden armory closet behind the bookshelves.
"Mobilize Team Alpha and Team Bravo."
"Tell Dominic to bring the heavy tactical gear and the thermal drone arrays to the staging area at the foot of Van Brunt Street."
"Get Dr. Rossi into a mobile intensive care ambulance and have him park two blocks north of Pier 42 with three units of O-negative blood and an emergency peritoneal dialysis rig."
Vincent unlocked the biometric steel doors of the armory.
Racks of tactical body armor, customized assault rifles, night-vision optics, and communication gear gleamed under the strip lighting.
"He told you to come alone, Mr. Caruso!" I cried out, rushing to his side.
"He said if he sees a single boat, he will cut her line!"
"Marcus Vance is a corporate coward, Lucy," Vincent replied, strapping a Kevlar vest beneath his tailored charcoal suit jacket with practiced efficiency.
"Men like Vance don't understand the geography of this city."
"He thinks Pier 42 is an abandoned warehouse."
"He doesn't know that my father dug the subterranean smuggling tunnels beneath Pier 42 thirty years ago to move contraband during the longshoremen strikes."
Vincent turned, picking up a lightweight Kevlar vest from the rack and holding it out toward me.
"You are coming with me," he said.
Marco looked up from his tablet, his eyes widening in shock.
"Boss, with respect, bringing a civilian into an active extraction zone—"
"She is not a civilian tonight, Marco," Vincent cut him off sharply.
"Her mother is in end-stage renal failure."
"The moment we secure the perimeter, Clara Bennett will need immediate clinical stabilization before we can transport her to the hospital."
"Lucy knows her mother’s vascular access."
"She knows her baseline vitals."
"She is the primary medic on this operation."
Vincent stepped close to me, holding the vest open.
"Put your arms through, Lucy."
My hands were trembling, but the terror was rapidly being replaced by a cold, searing fire of protective maternal fury.
I slipped my arms through the tactical vest.
Vincent tightened the heavy Velcro straps across my ribs, his hands firm, precise, and reassuringly close.
He reached down to the weapons rack, pulled out a compact, lightweight 9mm Glock with an integrated laser sight, racked the slide with a sharp mechanical click, and engaged the safety.
He placed the heavy steel weapon directly into my hands.
"Have you ever fired a gun, Lucy?" he asked, looking into my eyes.
"My uncle took me to a shooting range in upstate New York when I was nineteen," I whispered, feeling the cold weight of the polymer grip in my palms.
"The safety is on the trigger shoe," Vincent explained, wrapping his large, scarred fingers over mine to adjust my grip.
"Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to destroy what is in front of you."
"If any man who is not wearing a Caruso arm-patch approaches you or your mother..."
"You do not hesitate."
"You do not negotiate."
"You put the red dot on his chest and you pull until the slide locks back."
"Do you understand me?"
I looked down at the weapon, then looked up into the face of the man who ruled Brooklyn’s underworld.
"I understand," I said, my voice completely steady now.
Fifteen minutes later, a convoy of four unmarked black SUVs tore through the rear service gates of the estate, cutting through the deserted, rain-slicked industrial corridors of Red Hook.
The rain had turned into a torrential downpour, washing over the windshields in violent sheets.
Pier 42 loomed ahead through the sea fog—a decaying, rusted industrial pier jutting out into the black, churning waters of New York Harbor.
A single halogen floodlight illuminated the entrance of the cavernous corrugated-metal warehouse.
Parked beneath the light were three black Cadillacs bearing the corporate logos of Vance Infrastructure Holdings.
Vincent tapped his earpiece, leaning forward against the passenger seat of the lead SUV.
"Dominic, report."
"Subterranean team is in position, Boss," Dominic’s deep voice crackled over the secure frequency.
"We breached the lower drainage conduits beneath the south pier floor five minutes ago."
"Thermal imaging confirms six hostiles on the ground floor, heavily armed with tactical carbines."
"Two hostiles on the catwalk."
"And Marcus Vance is standing on the central shipping container platform."
Dominic paused, his voice dropping into a solemn murmur.
"We have visual on Clara Bennett, Boss."
"She is tied to a metal folding chair."
"Her dialysis line is clamped with a pair of vice grips."
"Her vitals look weak on thermal."
"Her core temperature is dropping."
The vein in Vincent’s forehead pulsed with lethal fury, but his voice remained as smooth and calm as a frozen lake.
"Time until power cut, Marco?"
"Thermal charges are set on the main transformer, Boss," Marco replied from the rear seat, his fingers hovering over a digital detonator.
"On your mark."
Vincent turned his head to look at me in the dim green glow of the tactical dashboard.
He reached out, his hand cupping the back of my neck, pulling my forehead forward until it rested against his.
"Keep your head down behind Dominic when the doors breach," Vincent whispered against my skin.
"Focus entirely on your mother."
"Let me handle the monsters."
"Bring her back to me, Vincent," I pleaded softly.
A dark, terrifying smile touched his lips.
"I am going to bring her back, Lucy."
"And then I am going to teach Marcus Vance what happens when you touch the family of Vincent Caruso."
Vincent kicked open the SUV door into the howling rain.
May you like
"Blow the transformer, Marco."
"Take them down."
