Chapter 4 - The Ambush at Pier 42The rain over New York had turned into a torrential downpour by the time three unmarked black SUVs pulled up two blocks away from Pier 42.
Fog rolled off the East River, thick and gray, cloaking the decaying wooden piers and rusted shipping containers. Alessandro stepped out into the freezing night, clad in a long black trench coat. Behind him, Victor walked with hands ziptied in front of him, playing the role of a defeated prisoner.
Underneath his trench coat, Alessandro was fully armored, carrying a high-frequency tracking beacon hidden inside the heel of his boot.
“Remember the plan, Victor,” Alessandro muttered under his breath as they walked down the slippery wooden dock. “When I give the signal, hit the deck.”
“If this goes wrong, kill me first, Alessandro,” Victor whispered back. “Don’t let them use me to hurt Elena.”
“Nobody dies tonight except the bastards who started this.”
At the end of the pier, three dark luxury sedans were parked with their headlights glaring through the mist, blinding Alessandro and Victor. Four heavily armed mercenaries stepped into the light, carrying automatic submachine guns.
The lead mercenary—a scarred Russian brute known as Anton—stepped forward with a wicked grin.
“Alessandro Moretti. The great Don of New York, walking into a slaughterhouse like a sheep,” Anton sneered in a thick accent. “Push the boy forward.”
Alessandro held Victor back with one firm arm. “Where is the verification code for Florence? Show me the live disarm confirmation, or you get nothing.”
Anton pulled out a hardened military tablet and held it up. “The moment I scan Victor’s retina to confirm the ledger key, the code is sent automatically to the Florence cell. Now hand him over!”
Victor took three slow steps forward. Anton reached out his gloved hand to grab Victor’s collar.
Now.
Alessandro didn’t wait for a signal. In one lightning-fast motion, he reached into his coat, drew two hidden suppressed pistols, and fired!
Thwip! Thwip!
The two mercenaries flanking Anton dropped instantly with bullets through their foreheads.
“Hit the deck!” Alessandro yelled.
Victor threw himself onto the wet planks of the pier just as gunfire erupted from the remaining hostiles. Bullets chewed through the wooden dock, sending splinters flying into the air.
Alessandro rolled behind a heavy steel shipping container, returning precise, lethal fire.
From the rooftops of the surrounding warehouses, Marco’s sniper team opened up. High-caliber rounds punched through the windshields of the enemy sedans, neutralizing the gunmen one by one in a chaotic storm of glass and steel.
Alessandro sprinted through the crossfire, lunging at Anton before the Russian could trigger the remote detonator on his tablet. They slammed onto the slippery dock, trading violent blows. Anton swung a heavy tactical knife, slicing Alessandro’s forearm, but Alessandro slammed his elbow into Anton’s throat, pinned his arm, and snapped the wrist holding the tablet!
Anton screamed in agony as Alessandro forced him to his knees, pressing the barrel of his Beretta directly into the Russian’s eye socket.
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“The disarm code!” Alessandro growled, his face covered in rain and blood. “TYPE IT IN!”
Anton spat blood onto Alessandro’s boots, grinning maniacally through broken teeth. “You’re too late, Moretti… The raid on Florence… was never meant to be disarmed… It was a decoy from the start!”
