Chapter 8 - The Docks of Retribution
By three o'clock the following afternoon, the city was drowning under a relentless autumn downpour.
The industrial shipping terminals on the north side smelled of wet rust, diesel fuel, and brackish river water.
Inside Warehouse Number Nine, the heavy rain hammered against the corrugated tin roof like a firing squad.
Dozens of high-intensity sodium floodlights illuminated the vast interior, reflecting off pools of grease on the concrete.
Thirty armed soldiers from the Rossi family stood stationed along the catwalks, their rifles resting on the metal railings.
In the center of the warehouse floor sat three wooden chairs surrounded by heavy steel shipping containers.
Tied to those chairs were three men dressed in soaking-wet business suits, their heads bowed in abject terror.
The man in the center was Arthur Vance, the younger brother of Judge Vance and the chief financial auditor for the port authority.
To his left and right sat two senior port inspectors who had signed off on the Vance family’s offshore shell accounts.
Victor walked into the pool of light, wearing heavy leather work boots and a long, dark oilskin trench coat.
Luca walked a step behind him, carrying a heavy steel toolbox and a waterlogged ledger bound in brass.
"Arthur," Victor said, his gravelly voice cutting through the roar of the rain on the tin roof.
Arthur Vance jerked his head up, his expensive silk tie torn and plastered to his shivering neck.
"Victor! Listen to me!" Arthur screamed, his voice cracking with hysteria.
"I had nothing to do with what Audrey did at the house! I swear to God on my children's lives!"
"I am an accountant, Victor! I only manage the logistics filings for the municipal contracts!"
Victor stepped up to the chair, pulling a heavy silver pocket watch from his vest and checking the hands.
"You have two minutes, Arthur," Victor said, not raising his voice by a single decibel.
"At three-fifteen, the river tide turns and the current runs at six knots out toward the open lake."
"My men have three fifty-gallon drums of industrial quick-set concrete waiting behind that blue container."
"So don't waste my time telling me about your children."
Arthur began to sob, his knees knocking violently together beneath his tailored slacks.
"My brother... my brother arranged the trust documents through a law firm in Delaware," Arthur stammered frantically.
"He found out six months ago that your mother held the personal title to the dock warehouses!"
"He knew that if Sylvia died, Audrey could claim the municipal leases under the domestic partnership clause!"
"He was going to sell the entire waterfront to the Moretti syndicate from New York for seventy million dollars!"
Victor’s eyes narrowed into dark, lethal slits as the final puzzle piece fell into place.
The Moretti family was an old, ruthless syndicate that had been trying to push into his territory for a decade.
They lacked the local political influence to seize the docks by force, so they had used the Vance family as an inside crowbar.
They had dangled seventy million dollars in front of Judge Vance to buy his cooperation and his daughter's complicity.
Audrey wasn't merely looking for an early inheritance; she was an operative in an interstate hostile takeover.
"Where was the closing scheduled to take place?" Victor asked, leaning down until his shadow fell over Arthur’s face.
"Tomorrow night!" Arthur blubbered, saliva and tears running into his gray beard.
"Tomorrow night at eight o'clock at the Grand Harbor Yacht Club!"
"Salvatore Moretti is arriving on a private cruiser from Atlantic City to sign the escrow releases!"
"My brother was supposed to bring the death certificate for Sylvia to show that the title was clear to transfer!"
Victor stood up straight, turning his back on the trembling accountant and looking up at the catwalks.
The sheer scale of the treachery was staggering, reaching from the city courtrooms all the way to New York.
If Marta had not retrieved those blue pills from Sylvia’s mouth, his mother would be cold in the ground today.
And tomorrow night, the Moretti family would have taken possession of his life’s work with the stroke of a pen.
"Luca," Victor said, his tone chillingly casual.
"Boss?" Luca stepped forward, his hand resting on the heavy grip of his shotgun.
"Untie the two inspectors."
The two men on either side of Arthur let out gasps of stunned, sobbing relief, slumping in their bindings.
"Give them each five thousand dollars from the safe and a one-way bus ticket to El Paso," Victor instructed.
"If I ever see their faces within five hundred miles of this river again, feed them to the shredder at the recycling plant."
The two inspectors nodded frantically, babbling thank-yous as Luca’s men cut their zip-ties.
"And Arthur?" Luca asked, nodding toward the sobbing accountant in the center chair.
Victor looked at Arthur Vance, the brother of the judge who had plotted his mother's murder for commercial real estate.
"Arthur is going to make a phone call to Mr. Moretti," Victor said, a dark, terrifying grin touching his lips.
"He is going to tell Salvatore that Sylvia Rossi passed away peacefully in her sleep this morning."
"He is going to tell him that Audrey is in deep mourning, but the paperwork is signed and ready for delivery."
"And then Arthur is going to invite Mr. Moretti to come ashore for a private toast in the estate’s wine cellar."
Arthur stared up at Victor in pure, uncomprehending horror.
"You're... you're going to ambush the New York underboss in your own house?" Arthur whispered.
"No, Arthur," Victor replied, turning toward the warehouse exit into the pouring rain.
May you like
"I am going to host a wake for my mother's enemies."
"And you are going to be the master of ceremonies."
