Chapter 10 - THE IRON YARD AT DAWN
The black armored truck tore through the industrial gates of the Calumet Railyard.
Freezing rain had turned into heavy, wet snow.
The flakes hissed as they hit the hot hood of the engine.
Rusted boxcars stretched into the darkness like iron tombs.
Inside the rear cabin, Frankie "The Ghost" tossed three tactical vests onto the metal bench.
"Carlo brought forty men," Frankie said, racking the bolt of an assault rifle.
"Half of them are local punks who don't know which end of a Glock goes bang."
"The other half are Petrov's personal guard."
"They have night-vision optics and heavy armor."
Dante strapped the Kevlar vest over his ruined shirt.
He looked at Isabella.
Her hands were still holding the cracked sapphire wrapped in a linen handkerchief.
"You stay in the truck with Marco," Dante said.
"No," she replied instantly.
"Isabella—"
"My uncle is in warehouse four," she said, her voice leaving no room for argument.
"He has asthma."
"He has a pacemaker."
"If you start shooting and blow up the kerosene heaters, the smoke will kill him before a bullet does."
Dante stared at her for three long seconds.
Then he reached into his vest, pulled a compact Glock 19, racked the slide, and handed it to her.
"Keep the safety off," Dante said.
"If anyone who isn't me or Marco touches you, empty the magazine into their chest."
She took the heavy weapon.
Her hands did not shake.
The truck slammed to a halt behind a row of rusted grain hoppers.
Marco kicked open the rear doors.
The freezing Chicago wind hit them instantly.
Through the falling snow, fifty yards away, the corrugated metal doors of Warehouse 4 glowed with dim yellow light.
Two guards stood by the entrance, smoking cigarettes under a plastic tarp.
Marco and Frankie moved through the shadows like wolves.
Two silenced thuds.
The cigarettes fell into the snow.
The guards collapsed without a sound.
Dante pushed the sliding iron door open three inches.
Inside, the warehouse smelled of diesel exhaust, burning kerosene, and old grease.
In the center of the vast concrete floor, tied to a wooden chair beneath a single hanging halogen lamp, sat Lorenzo Rossi.
His white hair was matted with dried blood.
His head hung limply against his chest.
Standing twenty feet away, warming his hands over a flaming oil drum, was Carlo Moretti.
Carlo was talking on a satellite phone, pacing back and forth.
"I don't care about Viktor!" Carlo shouted into the phone.
"Tell the Commission the council meeting is at eight o'clock!"
"I will have the ledger and the key by then!"
Dante stepped through the door into the open light.
His boots clicked against the concrete.
"The meeting is canceled, Carlo."
Carlo spun around, dropping the satellite phone into the dirt.
From the dark corners of the warehouse, twenty armed men emerged from behind shipping containers.
Rifles were raised in unison.
Carlo’s eyes widened, then shifted into an arrogant, vicious grin.
"Dante," Carlo mocked, spreading his arms wide.
"You actually came."
"The great Don Moretti, walking into a slaughterhouse for an old man."
"Let Lorenzo go," Dante said, walking steadily forward.
He stopped ten paces away.
He didn't raise his weapon.
"You want my seat, Carlo?"
"You want the ports?"
"Take them."
"Let the girl take her uncle and leave the state."
Carlo laughed, a shrill, hysterical sound that bounced off the high tin rafters.
"You still don't understand, do you?" Carlo sneered.
He pulled a nine-millimeter pistol from his coat and pointed it directly at Lorenzo’s head.
"This was never about the ports, Dante!"
"This was about the insult!"
"For fifteen years, your father treated me like a stray dog!"
"I ran the street crews!"
"I took the prison sentences!"
"And who did he name as his successor?"
Carlo spat onto the floor.
"You."
"The pretty boy who went to Harvard."
"The civilized Don who wanted to make us legitimate."
"And then you brought that art-gallery whore into our home to tell us how to spend our money!"
From the shadows behind the rusted machinery, Isabella stepped forward into the halogen light.
She held the fractured sapphire high above her head.
"You wanted this, Carlo?" she called out.
Carlo’s eyes locked onto the glowing blue stone.
Greed flashed across his face like lightning.
"The key..." Carlo breathed.
"It is broken, Carlo," she said, stepping closer.
"Just like your pathetic plan."
"Kill them!" Carlo screamed to his men.
"Kill them all!"
Before his men could pull their triggers, the high corrugated skylights above them shattered in a violent explosion of glass and smoke.
Flash-bangs rained down like shooting stars.
Thunderous concussions ripped through the warehouse.
May you like
The lights went black.
And in the darkness, Dante Moretti became the monster Chicago had feared for thirty years.
