Chapter 7 - The Mastermind’s Gambit
Mara froze, turning slowly with her gun raised toward the catwalk.
Standing under the harsh halogen lights was not Julian Vale.
It was the woman from the restaurant—the matriarch with pearls at her neck, whom Mara had assumed was just a rival syndicate boss. Mrs. Moretti.
Beside her, handcuffed and bloody, was Julian Vale.
"Surprised, my dear?" Mrs. Moretti smiled, stepping down the steel stairs with terrifying grace. Two heavy enforcers flanked her, their weapons trained directly on Mara's head. "Julian here thought he was running the Shadow Council. He was so eager to usurp his brother Adrian that he never stopped to ask who was funding his bank accounts."
"You," Mara spat, her eyes darting between the guards. "You ordered the hit on Adrian at Bellarosa's."
"Of course I did!" Mrs. Moretti laughed. "Adrian Vale was too honorable, too paranoid, too difficult to control. I needed him dead so Julian could take over the Vale empire. And once Julian was in power, I would eliminate him and take everything."
She gestured toward Arthur Bell, who was struggling against his restraints on the gurney.
"Your father spent five years building the master encryption keys for every financial ledger in North America," Mrs. Moretti continued, her tone chillingly businesslike. "He refused to hand over the final vault key unless he knew you were safe. So I used you, Mara. I sent you the key. I lured you to the restaurant. I knew your stupid, heroic instincts would make you save Adrian, triggering the sequence that would bring both of you straight to me."
"You used my father as bait," Mara said, her finger tightening on the trigger.
"And you walked right into the trap," Mrs. Moretti said softly. "Drop the gun, Mara. Or my man puts a bullet through your father's chest right now."
One of the heavy enforcers stepped up to the gurney, pressing the barrel of a shotgun against Arthur Bell's forehead.
Mara’s hands trembled. Tears of rage filled her eyes. Slowly, reluctantly, she lowered her weapon and dropped it onto the steel deck.
"Smart girl," Mrs. Moretti chuckled. She pulled a small silver detonator from her pocket. "Now, as soon as my men finish off Adrian on the upper deck, we will sink this ship to the bottom of the bay with all three of you inside. The police will call it an unfortunate gang war. And I will inherit the East Coast."
Suddenly, a loud, crashing sound echoed through the ceiling of the cargo hold.
BOOM!
A steel shipping container smashed through the upper hatch of the deck, crushing one of Mrs. Moretti's enforcers instantly under ten tons of solid iron!
Through the dust and twisted metal, a figure descended from a tactical rope, landing with lethal grace on the steel floor.
Adrian Vale.
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He was bleeding from a cut above his brow, his body covered in soot and combat grime, but his eyes were blazing with pure, unrestrained fury.
"Did you really think," Adrian growled, raising his weapon with blinding speed, "that I wouldn't check the manifest of this ship before I boarded it?"
