Chapter 7 - Pier 14
The storm raged over the industrial docks of Pier 14. Giant corrugated metal warehouses stood like rusted leviathans along the water's edge, their yellow floodlights casting long, greasy streaks across the rain-slicked asphalt.
Inside Warehouse 3, the air was thick with the smell of diesel fuel, salt water, and decaying fish.
Elena was tied to a wooden chair in the center of the concrete floor. Her hands were bound tightly behind her back with heavy plastic zip-ties.
Beside her, Mia sat on a small wooden crate. She hadn't been tied up, but Marco Rossi—the thick-necked hitman with the blue anchor pin—stood over them, holding a heavy suppressed pistol in his hand.
Near the loading bay doors, Dr. Samuel Vance—Alessandro’s eye doctor—was hastily packing medical equipment into a silver briefcase.
“Are you sure the ship is on schedule?” Vance asked nervously, wiping sweat from his forehead. “If Moretti finds out—”
“Moretti is blind and stupid,” Marco Rossi spat, spitting a gob of tobacco onto the floor. “He’s sitting in his mansion drinking tea while his fiancée runs his empire. By the time he realizes the maid is gone, this boat will be halfway across the Mediterranean.”
Elena pulled frantically at the zip-ties behind her back, her wrists bleeding against the sharp plastic edges. “Let my daughter go,” she begged, her voice hoarse from crying. “She’s three years old! She doesn't know anything! Take me, do whatever you want with me, but please, put her on a bus!”
Marco walked over, leaning down until his ugly, scarred face was inches from Elena’s. “Shut up, maid. You saw the pin. You saw the drops. You know too much. In this business, loose ends get drowned.”
Mia looked up at the scary man. Her small body was shaking with fear, but she remembered what her mother always told her when she was scared: Be brave like a lion.
Mia reached quietly into her small overalls pocket. Her tiny fingers wrapped around her small yellow flashlight. It was broken, missing its back battery cover, but the bulb still worked if she pressed the button down hard.
She squeezed it tight inside her fist.
Outside the warehouse, the heavy metal loading doors suddenly groaned.
BANG.
A massive black SUV smashed through the reinforced wooden side doors of the warehouse, sending wooden splinters and glass flying through the air like shrapnel.
Marco whirled around, raising his gun. “What the—”
Before he could pull the trigger, three rapid gunshots echoed through the cavernous space.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Dr. Vance screamed as two bullets struck his chest, lifting him off his feet and throwing him backward over his silver briefcase. He hit the concrete floor motionless.
The driver’s side door of the SUV kicked open.
Out stepped Alessandro Moretti.
He wore no glasses. He carried no cane. He moved with the terrifying, lethal speed of a shadow, his chrome .45 raised in a perfect, steady two-handed tactical grip.
Behind him, Frankie and six Moretti enforcers poured out of the vehicle, spreading out across the warehouse floor, their weapons trained on the shipping crates.
Marco Rossi grabbed Mia by her collar, hauling the three-year-old off the crate and pressing his gun barrel straight against her head.
“STOP!” Marco shrieked, his voice cracking in sheer panic. “STOP OR I’LL BLOW HER BRAT’S HEAD OFF!”
Elena screamed in pure agony. “MIA!”
Alessandro stopped twenty feet away. His steel-blue eyes locked directly onto Marco’s face.
Marco stared at Alessandro, his eyes widening in complete, brain-numbing disbelief. The blind Don was staring straight into his soul.
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“Moretti?” Marco stammered, holding the child tightly. “You... you can see?”
“I see everything, Marco,” Alessandro said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying vibrate. “Including the anchor on your coat.”
