Chapter 8 - THE PRICE OF THE CROWN
The New Queen of the Neon NightsThe smoke from the gunfire cleared, leaving behind the smell of copper, burning oil, and the cold salt of the river.
Anatoly Valenti was the only one left alive. He was kneeling in the wet gravel, his silver mustache stained with blood, his expensive trench coat torn at the shoulder.
Marcello slowly walked down the metal stairs, his cane clicking rhythmically against the iron grates. He stopped three feet from the rival boss, his suppressed automatic pointing directly at Valenti’s head.
"Please, Marcello," Valenti gasped, his hands raised in surrender. "We can make a deal. The docks... we can share them. Fifty-fifty. The other families don't have to know."
"My uncle didn't share, Anatoly," Marcello said softly. "And neither do I."
He didn't fire. Instead, he turned his head and looked toward the gray sedan.
"Nora," he called out.
Nora opened the car door and stepped out into the damp morning air, limping heavily on her bandaged knee. She walked across the yard, her sneakers crunching on the spent brass casings that littered the ground.
She stopped beside Marcello, looking down at the man who had ordered her diner to be turned into a slaughterhouse.
"He's yours," Marcello said, offering her the pistol. "For your house. For your Nonna Chiara. For the diner."
Nora looked at the gun. She looked at Valenti, who was staring up at her with eyes full of a pathetic, desperate terror. He didn't even know her name. To him, she was just a waitress, a piece of trash from the streets.
She slowly reached out and took the gun. It was heavy, cold, and felt exactly like the needle her Nonna Chiara had used to sew the suits of the kings who ruled the city.
"Se muori qui," Nora whispered in Italian, her voice carrying the cold gravel of the queens she was born to succeed.
If you die here.
"Mi tocca pulire il sangue."
I have to clean the blood.
She raised the weapon and pulled the trigger.
The sun rose over the East River at 6:00 a.m., but it didn't bring warmth. It only brought a pale, watery light that turned the fog into a silver shroud.
Nora stood at the edge of the pier, watching the gray water run out to the sea. The diner uniform was gone, replaced by a dark wool overcoat that Marcello’s men had brought her—a coat that fit her perfectly, as if it had been sewn by her Nonna Chiara herself.
Marcello stood beside her, his hand resting on the gold-plated handle of his cane.
"The Five Families have been notified," he said quietly. "The Vitucci family is secure. And the Rossi name has been restored to the ledger."
"I don't care about the ledger, Marcello," Nora said, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
"You should," he said, turning to look at her. "Because as of this morning, you own Pier 40. Every shipment, every container, every cup of coffee that enters this harbor goes through you. You are no longer the help, Nora."
Nora pulled the collar of her new coat up against the cold wind. She felt the heavy stack of ten-thousand-dollar bills in her pocket, the weight of the silver ring Marcello had placed on her finger, and the cold, unyielding silence of the city she had finally conquered.
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"I'm still a waitress, Marcello," she said, a small, dangerous smile touching her lips. "I'm just serving a different kind of customer now."
She turned and walked back toward the waiting black SUVs, her bad knee throwing off a faint, dull ache that reminded her exactly where she had come from, and exactly who she had become.
