Chapter 6 - The Trap at Pier 44The midnight wind off the East River was bitter, carrying the smell of brine, diesel, and rotting timber.
Pier 44 was an industrial ghost town—a cavernous, rusted-out slaughterhouse where beef had once been hung and processed before the shipping district went bankrupt. Now, it was a graveyard of broken machinery and grease-stained concrete.
The black SUV pulled up fifty yards from the main sliding door, its headlights cutting through the thick, swirling fog.
Alessandro Moretti stepped out alone. No coat. No entourage. Just his dark trousers, a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and the silver signet ring gleaming on his right hand under the pale moonlight.
From the shadows of the loading dock, thirty men emerged, weapons drawn. At the center stood Salvatore Bianchi, a thick, silver-haired man holding a lit cigar that glowed like a red eye in the dark.
"Well, well, well," Bianchi laughed, a dry, grating sound that bounced off the corrugated metal walls. "The king walks into the slaughterhouse without his guard dogs. Are you growing senile, Alessandro, or did you finally realize your time is up?"
Alessandro stopped twenty feet away, his hands shoved casually into his pockets. He didn't look at the thirty guns pointed at his chest. He looked at Bianchi’s shoes.
"You smell like cheap tobacco, Salvatore," Alessandro said calmly. "And your men smell like desperation."
Bianchi’s face twisted into an ugly snarl. "You humiliated me this morning. You canceled a summit for a maid's brat. You think because you control the downtown banks you're untouchable? The ports belong to me now. The council has voted. You're finished."
"The council," Alessandro murmured, tilting his head. "Ah, yes. The same council that has been accepting bribes from your Swiss bank accounts for the last six months."
Bianchi’s cigar paused halfway to his mouth. "What did you say?"
"You think I didn't see the deposits?" Alessandro stepped forward, his voice cutting through the wind like a razor. "You thought you could buy out my captains one by one. You thought I was too busy playing domestic babysitter to notice."
"Shoot him!" Bianchi roared, panic spiking in his throat. "Kill him right now!"
Before the first finger could squeeze a trigger, the high windows of the slaughterhouse shattered inward.
CRASH!
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From the darkness above, figures dropped like avenging angels onto the concrete floor. Marco Ricci led the charge, two submachine guns barking fire in a deafening roar. In three seconds, half of Bianchi’s men were disarmed, bleeding on the floor before they even knew what hit them.
Bianchi stumbled backward, his eyes wide with sheer terror as Alessandro closed the distance between them with terrifying speed.
