Chapter 9 - THE LONELY STREETS
Midnight.
Rain poured down in sheets over the dark, slick streets of Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Dante Romano walked aimlessly down the deserted industrial avenue near the docks, his clothes soaked through, his shoes squelching with cold dirty water.
He had spent the last eight hours trying to find help.
He had gone to his old capo friends in Queens—they had locked their doors and threatened to shoot him if he stepped onto their porches.
He had gone to his family’s old residence in Bensonhurst—his mother had refused to answer the intercom, weeping behind the curtains as she told him through the speaker that he had brought shame upon the Romano name.
He had called Claire forty times—her phone was disconnected.
He had zero dollars in his pocket. No car. No phone. No coat.
He stopped outside the heavy chain-link fence overlooking the Red Hook Shipping Terminal—the massive industrial port he had walked through like a king just four days ago.
Inside the brightly lit terminal, massive yellow cranes were lifting heavy steel containers off a cargo ship. Longshoremen in high-visibility vests were laughing, working efficiently, moving cargo smoothly under the night lights.
On the side of the towering main warehouse, a massive new neon sign had just been illuminated.
It didn't say ROMANO GROUP.
It read: VALE MARITIME LOGISTICS.
Dante dropped to his knees in the muddy gutter outside the fence, clutching the rusted iron wire with both hands, rainwater mixing with the bitter, hysterical tears streaming down his face.
He looked up at the neon sign.
Everything he had ever touched, everything he had ever bragged about in high-society clubs, everything he had used to make himself feel powerful... had been built on the quiet, gracious generosity of a woman he had treated like an afterthought.
He had thought she was weak because she was quiet.
He had thought she was helpless because she stayed home while he played the big mafia boss.
He had never realized that she was the foundation holding up his entire universe. And when he stepped on her heart one too many times, she had simply stood up... and let his world collapse into dust.
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"Serena..." Dante sobbed into the cold iron fence, his forehead pressing against the wet metal. "Serena... I’m sorry... I’m so sorry..."
His cries were drowned out by the thunderous roar of a horn from a departing cargo ship, cutting through the rainy night as it set sail out into the vast, endless ocean.
