Chapter 3 - THE WAREHOUSE AT THREE A.M.
Vincent Rossi didn't answer. He didn't try to speak Neapolitan, English, or Italian.
In a final, desperate act of cowardice, Vincent raised his silver-plated pistol and aimed it directly at Dominic’s chest.
He never got to pull the trigger.
Dominic’s chief bodyguard, a silent seven-foot monster named Leo, stepped forward and struck Vincent across the side of the head with the butt of a heavy shotgun.
THUD!
Vincent dropped to his knees, his gun clattering across the wet floorboards, blood pouring from a gash above his ear.
Dominic walked over, picked up his uncle’s silver pistol from the floor, and ejected the magazine, catching the live rounds in his hand with smooth, practiced ease. He dropped the empty gun into his pocket and looked down at his bleeding uncle.
“Leo,” Dominic commanded. “Zip-tie my uncle’s hands behind his back and throw him in the trunk of the Mercedes. We are going to Port Newark.”
“Yes, Boss,” Leo grunted, grabbing Vincent by his collar and hauling him out of the boardroom like a sack of dirty laundry.
Dominic turned back to the table. Gregory Volk was still sobbing, pinned to the mahogany wood by the combat knife through his hand.
Dominic reached out, grabbed the handle of the knife, and yanked it free with a cruel, sudden twist. Gregory let out another high-pitched wail, clutching his ruined, bloody palm against his chest.
“Charles,” Dominic said, looking over at interpreter number twelve, who was hyperventilating in his armchair.
“Y-yes, Mr. Rossi?” Charles whimpered.
“You’re fired,” Dominic said. “Get out of my sight before I decide to charge you for the rug.”
Charles didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled out of his chair and sprinted toward the service elevators, tripping over his own loafers on his way out.
Dominic walked over to where Maeve was still kneeling in the puddle of soapy water. He reached out his hand—not to threaten her, but with his palm turned upward in an unmistakable invitation.
“Get up, Maeve,” Dominic said.
Maeve looked at his outstretched hand. His fingers were long, manicured, and carried the faint stain of Gregory’s blood under the nails. She took his hand, feeling the immense, iron strength beneath his skin as he easily pulled her to her feet. Her right knee gave a sharp, grinding pop, making her wince.
Dominic noticed the wince instantly. His eyes dropped to her worn, threadbare sneakers and the damp fabric of her cleaning trousers.
“How long have you been working for this cleaning agency?” Dominic asked as he walked toward the private elevator at the back of the boardroom.
“Two years,” Maeve said, drying her hands on a fresh towel from her cart.
“What do they pay you?”
“Fifteen seventy-five an hour.”
Dominic pulled a gold money clip from his pocket, detached a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills without counting them, and pressed the money directly into her wet hand.
“Now you make ten thousand dollars a night,” Dominic said. “And right now, your night isn't over. You’re coming with me to Newark.”
Maeve stared at the stack of hundred-dollar bills in her hand. There was more money in her palm right now than she earned in six months of scrubbing floors.
“Why do you need me in Newark?” Maeve asked, her eyebrows furrowing. “You know where the warehouse is. You know your uncle betrayed you.”
Dominic stepped into the private elevator and held the door button, looking at her with those piercing, unreadable grey eyes.
“Because Gregory Volk’s men at the docks don't know that Gregory is currently riding in my backseat with a shattered nose,” Dominic explained. “They are expecting a signal from Gregory in Russian, Albanian, or whatever filthy dialect they use to light that match. I need a pair of ears I can trust. And right now, Maeve Nolan, you are the only person in this city who isn't lying to me.”
Maeve looked down at her blue cleaning shirt, then at the stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills, and finally at the boss holding the elevator door.
She stepped inside.
Twenty minutes later, three dark, armored SUVs were tearing down the New Jersey Turnpike at ninety miles an hour, slicing through the heavy rainstorm that had rolled in over the coast.
Maeve sat in the luxury leather backseat of the lead SUV, directly beside Dominic Rossi.
She felt completely out of place. Her damp uniform smelled faintly of bleach, contrasting sharply with the opulent leather, custom wood trim, and sleek digital monitors embedded in the SUV’s dashboard. On her left, Leo was checking the magazine of a short-barreled assault rifle. In the third row of seats behind them, Gregory Volk sat bound and gagged, his face swollen and bloody, flanked by two armed guards.
Dominic was on a secure satellite phone.
“I want six team units surrounding the perimeter of Warehouse 4,” Dominic instructed his chief of security on the line. “Do not engage until I am on site. If you see smoke, break the doors down immediately. My brother is inside.”
He hung up the phone and turned to Maeve.
“Tell me about your mother,” Dominic said suddenly.
Maeve blinked, surprised by the personal question from a man who had murdered two people less than half an hour ago.
“Her name was Siobhan,” Maeve said softly, looking out the rain-streaked window at the passing industrial lights of Newark. “She came over from County Cork when she was nineteen. She worked three jobs her whole life. She died of pancreatic cancer when I was twenty-two because we couldn't afford the private treatment center in Boston.”
Dominic was silent for a long moment. He reached into a side compartment, pulled out a small glass bottle of expensive mineral water, un-capped it, and handed it to her.
“Integrity is an expensive thing to keep when you’re poor,” Dominic murmured, his voice surprisingly gentle. “My father used to say that the world belongs to men who take what they want, but the house only stands if the foundation is built by people who don't lie.”
“Your father was wrong about the first part,” Maeve said, taking a sip of the water. “The world doesn't belong to men who take what they want. It belongs to men who know when to listen.”
Dominic let out a short, quiet laugh—a rare, genuine sound that seemed to surprise even Leo in the front passenger seat.
“You have a sharp tongue, Maeve Nolan,” Dominic said. “I like that.”
The SUV slowed down, its headlights cutting through the thick fog and pouring rain as it turned onto an unpaved, gravel road near the edge of the Newark shipping yards.
Up ahead, rising out of the mist like a rusting metal behemoth, was Warehouse 4.
The building was a massive, corrugated iron structure built in the 1970s, surrounded by stacks of colorful shipping containers and tall chain-link fences topped with razor wire. Two dark pickup trucks were parked near the main loading bay doors, their engines idling, their exhausts spewing white smoke into the cold rain.
Four men in heavy waterproof jackets stood on the loading dock, holding automatic rifles, passing a flask of vodka back and forth.
Dominic leaned forward, his eyes scanning the building through the tinted windshield.
“Leo,” Dominic whispered. “Position the sniper team on the crane to the left. We take them down quietly.”
“Wait,” Maeve said, leaning forward to look through the glass.
Her ears caught the faint sound of a high-pitched, metallic squawk coming from the perimeter guard’s hand-held radio, piped through the SUV’s directional audio surveillance system.
A man’s voice was speaking over the radio in a rapid, heavy Albanian dialect.
Maeve’s eyes widened.
“It’s a trap,” Maeve warned, grabbing Dominic’s sleeve. “Don't send your men to the loading dock!”
Dominic instantly froze, his hand halting Leo’s movement. “What are they saying, Maeve?”
Maeve listened intently to the crackling audio, translating the Albanian words as fast as they hit her ears:
“The target isn't inside the warehouse,” Maeve recited, her voice tight with panic. “Repeat, the target is locked in the red shipping container on the barge behind the dock. They’ve rigged the warehouse main floor with explosive tripwires. If Rossi’s men breach the front doors, the whole building goes up in smoke.”
Dominic turned his head toward the dark river behind the warehouse, where the heavy silhouette of an industrial barge rocked gently against the black water.
May you like
A single, red shipping container sat on the deck of the barge.
And standing on top of that container, holding a road flare and a detonator, was a man waiting for the Rossi cars to charge the front doors.
