Chapter 11 - The Phantom Manifest
The morning sun hit the harbor water like liquid gold, but inside the private conference room of Caruso-Mercer Logistics, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of roasted Colombian coffee and cold calculus. Twelve dock captains sat around a mahogany table that spanned the length of the room, men who had survived decades of union wars, FBI crackdowns, and the brutal fallout of the old Mercer regime.
They weren't looking at Roman. Every pair of hardened eyes was fixed on me.
"The Brooklyn piers are operating at eighty percent capacity," Frank Russo, an old-guard captain with a jagged scar across his jaw, rumbled as he slid a digital tablet across the table. "The union leaders are restless. They want to know if the new management is going to honor the old protection payouts, or if we’re looking at another harbor war."
I didn't blink. I didn't reach for Roman’s hand or look to him for validation. I picked up the tablet, scanned the logistics throughput, and pushed it back across the wood with a quiet, deliberate click.
"Protection payouts died with my father, Frank," I said, my voice carrying cleanly across the silent room. "If the union wants stability, they get security contracts, transparent payrolls, and a twenty-percent wage increase. If they want extortion, they can pack their bags and try their luck across the river."
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A murmur rippled through the table. Several captains exchanged uneasy glances. Frank Russo stared at me for three long, agonizing seconds, searching for a trace of the terrified girl who used to cower behind closed doors. Instead, he found a woman who had helped burn her own family's empire to the ground.
Frank slowly leaned back in his chair, a faint, grudging smirk touching the corner of his mouth. "Looks like the harbor finally has a captain who doesn't need bodyguards," he muttered, raising his coffee cup in silent salute.
