Chapter 4 - THE SHADOW AT THE DOCKS
The rain turned into a driving sleet by the time Sarah navigated the unmarked sedan through the industrial corridors of the south docks.
The wipers swept across the windshield with a rhythmic, mechanical slap.
Sarah was behind the wheel.
Vincent sat in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead into the darkness.
His weapon rested on his lap, concealed beneath the folds of his coat.
In the back seat sat two men.
They were not Moretti soldiers.
They were Sarah’s former colleagues from her private military contracting firm—men who answered to wire transfers and professional codes, not blood allegiances.
Michael Grant had been left behind.
Sarah had ordered him detained under armed guard in the hotel's private executive suite.
If Michael was an accomplice, he was neutralized for the night.
If he was a pawn, he was safe from the slaughter.
"Anthony was nine years old when our father was executed in his own driveway," Vincent said suddenly.
His voice was hollow, barely audible over the hum of the engine.
"I took the blood off his school shoes that night."
"I swore to him that he would never have to touch an illegal dollar or smell cordite."
"I put him in private academies in Switzerland."
"I gave him seventy percent of the commercial real estate trust."
Sarah kept her eyes fixed on the rain-slicked road.
"Betrayal rarely comes from your enemies, Vincent."
"Enemies don't have the administrative logins."
Vincent turned his head toward her.
"You think he wants my chair?"
"I think men who grow up protected by monsters often convince themselves that monsters are easy to replace," she replied.
She turned off the headlights three blocks before the terminal gates.
The old Moretti Shipping Yard was a relic of the 1980s.
Rusted shipping containers were stacked three stories high like giant iron coffins.
A derelict crane loomed against the gray sky like a skeletal praying mantis.
At the far end of the tarmac stood the maintenance shed.
A single amber floodlight illuminated the gravel driveway.
Parked beneath the floodlight was a slate-gray Mercedes sedan.
It bore the vanity license plate that Vincent had gifted his brother for his twenty-eighth birthday.
Vincent let out a slow, ragged breath.
The reality was undeniable now.
His brother was inside.
Sarah shifted the car into park behind a row of corroded freight bins.
"Standard tactical ingress," she instructed her two operators in the back.
"Suppressors on. Thermal imaging at the primary apertures."
"Do not fire on Anthony Moretti unless I give the verbal order."
"What about the others?" one of the contractors asked.
"Neutralize with prejudice," Sarah said.
Vincent looked at her.
"He is still my brother."
"If your brother draws a weapon on me, Vincent, I will shoot him in the shoulder," she said without emotion.
"If he draws on you, I will shoot him between the eyes."
"Those are the terms of my contract."
Vincent nodded slowly.
He did not argue.
They exited the vehicle into the freezing sleet.
The cold bit through their clothes immediately, but Sarah’s movements were fluid and silent.
She led the stack along the corrugated metal wall of the warehouse.
She reached the rusted personnel door.
The electronic magnetic lock had been bypassed with a portable jumper pack.
Professional work.
Sarah raised three fingers.
Two.
One.
She pushed the door inward.
The hinges had been freshly oiled; they did not make a sound.
The interior smelled of stale hydraulic fluid, wet cardboard, and copper.
The copper smell was blood.
Sarah raised her weapon, scanning the cavernous room through her tritium night sights.
At the center of the warehouse, beneath a hanging halogen work light, sat a wooden chair.
Daniel Price was tied to the frame with industrial zip-ties.
His head hung forward against his chest.
His shirt was torn and soaked in dark red stains.
Standing three paces away from the chair was Anthony Moretti.
Anthony was wearing an Italian cashmere trench coat that was splattered with mud.
In his right hand, he held a silver revolver.
His hand was shaking violently.
He was pacing back and forth across the oil-stained concrete like a caged animal.
"Anthony," Vincent’s voice cut through the cavernous space like a whip.
Anthony spun around so fast he nearly lost his footing on the slick concrete.
He raised the revolver toward the shadows.
"Who’s there?" Anthony screamed.
His voice was wild, panicked, and cracked with sheer hysteria.
Sarah stepped out of the darkness first, her weapon leveled dead at Anthony’s center mass.
"Lower the weapon, Anthony," she said.
"Sarah?" Anthony blinked through the harsh glare of the halogen bulb.
Then Vincent stepped into the circle of light.
His face was carved from granite.
"Put the gun down, little brother," Vincent said.
Anthony’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.
His knees seemed to buckle for a fraction of a second.
"Vincent...?" Anthony choked out.
"You're... you're alive?"
Vincent stopped five paces away.
"You sound disappointed."
"No!" Anthony yelled, lowering the revolver slightly.
"No, Vincent, you don't understand!"
"I understand everything," Vincent said, his voice trembling with a mixture of grief and fury.
"I understand that my car was hit by a truck an hour ago."
"I understand that the override code came from my inner circle."
"And I understand that I just heard your voice on the phone while my transport chief was being tortured."
Anthony looked down at Daniel Price, then back at Vincent.
Tears were streaming down Anthony's face, cutting clean lines through the grime on his cheeks.
"I didn't torture him, Vincent!" Anthony cried.
"I found him here!"
"With a gun in your hand?" Vincent roared, closing the distance between them.
"With his blood on your shoes?"
"I took the gun from him!" Anthony pointed at the chair.
"Daniel was running! He was packing fifty million dollars in syndicate bearer bonds into a crate!"
"He was trying to get to the private airstrip in Gary!"
Sarah did not lower her weapon.
She stepped closer to Daniel Price and pressed two fingers against his carotid artery.
"Pulse is weak and thready," Sarah reported.
"He’s been beaten with blunt force. Severe internal hemorrhaging."
Daniel slowly raised his bruised eyelids.
His lips were split and swollen.
"Mr... Mr. Moretti..." Daniel whispered.
Vincent knelt beside the chair, ignoring Anthony for a brief second.
"Daniel. Look at me. Did my brother do this to you?"
Daniel shook his head weakly.
"No..."
Vincent froze.
Anthony let out a shuddering sob.
"I told you, Vincent! I told you!"
"Then who did this, Daniel?" Sarah demanded, her tactical gaze sweeping the rafters above them.
"Who gave you the order to cancel Ryan Mercer?"
Daniel spat a mouthful of dark blood onto the floor.
"Not Anthony..." Daniel gasped.
"He... he came to stop me..."
"Who?" Vincent shouted, grabbing Daniel's lapels.
"The Council..." Daniel whispered.
"Salvatore Rossi."
The name dropped into the room like a heavy anvil.
Salvatore Rossi was the oldest living member of the Moretti governing board.
He was Vincent’s godfather.
He was the man who had placed the syndicate ring on Vincent’s finger ten years ago.
"Rossi... made a deal with the Castiglione family..." Daniel muttered, his eyes rolling back into his head.
"They didn't want... your legal merger, Vincent."
"They said... you were making the family soft."
"They said... you were going to hand the books to the feds..."
"They wanted you dead at the St. Jude... and they were going to frame Anthony for the hit."
"They used Anthony's credentials... to order the hit team..."
Suddenly, the sharp crack of high-caliber rifle fire shattered the warehouse roof.
A spray of glass rained down from the skylights forty feet above.
One of Sarah’s private contractors took a round directly to the chest plate and was thrown backward onto the concrete.
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"Sniper!" Sarah yelled.
She grabbed Vincent by the shoulders and tackled him behind an overturned iron industrial dumpster.
