Chapter 8 - THE TRAP AT PIER 9
Pier 9 was a maze of rusted iron and towering cargo containers.
Fog rolled off the black harbor water, swallowing the sodium lights.
The Crest of Naples hummed with diesel power, preparing to slip its moorings.
Dante’s black armored command truck idled in the shadows of an abandoned customs warehouse.
Inside, Gemma watched the live tactical drone feeds on four separate monitors.
Dante was strapping on an assault vest.
“All three perimeter teams are in position,” Gemma reported, her headset glowing blue.
“Falcone has forty armed guards on the main crane platform.”
“And Salvatore?” Dante asked, tightening his gloves.
“He just arrived in his armored Maybach,” she said.
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the desk.
“Bianca is with him.”
Dante looked at the monitor.
The infrared camera showed Bianca stepping out of the luxury vehicle.
She was wearing a long leather coat, screaming into a satellite phone.
Beside her, Salvatore was leaning heavily on his silver-headed cane.
He looked ancient.
Desperate.
The net was closing, and the old rat knew it.
“Enzo,” Dante spoke into his tactical mic.
“Cut the pier power grid in three, two, one.”
The massive floodlights illuminating the dock exploded into darkness.
The hum of the diesel cranes died instantly.
Panic erupted across the pier.
“Ambush!” someone screamed in Italian.
Muzzle flashes strobed through the fog like strobing lightning.
Lombardi snipers took out the platform sentries with suppressed fire.
Dante moved like a phantom between the towering shipping crates.
He did not rush.
He did not waste ammunition.
Every trigger pull dropped a hostile target into the wet gravel.
He advanced toward the Maybach.
Salvatore’s personal bodyguards tried to form a defensive ring around the car.
Dante hurled a flashbang into their center.
The blinding detonation disoriented the guards.
Dante closed the distance, firing four controlled bursts.
The bodyguards dropped.
Bianca backed away against the side of the car, her hands raised.
Her diamond-encrusted wedding ring caught the faint moonlight.
The ring Dante had bought her two months ago.
“Dante!” she screamed, her voice shrill with terrified rage.
“Don't do this! We can still fix this!”
“We can split the waterfront fifty-fifty!”
“Take off the ring, Bianca,” Dante said.
He walked toward her, his rifle pointed at the pavement.
She scrambled to pull the ring from her finger.
She dropped it into his open hand.
Dante let it fall into the murky harbor water behind him.
A soft splash.
Gone.
Suddenly, a gunshot cracked from behind the open Maybach door.
The bullet grazed Dante’s shoulder, tearing through his tactical vest.
Dante pivoted instantly.
Salvatore was standing inside the door frame, a pearl-handled revolver shaking in his arthritic hands.
“You ungrateful bastard!” the old man wheezed, his eyes bloodshot.
“I made your father!”
“I allowed your family to breathe on this waterfront!”
Dante stepped forward.
He ripped the revolver from Salvatore’s frail grip, shattering the old man’s wrist with a brutal twist.
Salvatore fell to his knees in the mud, crying out in agony.
“You murdered my brother, Salvatore,” Dante said.
His voice was lower than the winter tide.
“You had your daughter poison his drink.”
“You threw him into the harbor like trash.”
“He was a boy!” Dante roared, the composure finally shattering into pure, righteous fury.
“He had nothing to do with this war!”
“He was weak!” Salvatore spat, coughing blood onto the gravel.
“Just like you! You would ruin everything for a common whore who fetches your coffee!”
Before Dante could squeeze the trigger, a voice cut through his earpiece.
“Dante! Look out!”
May you like
Gemma’s scream through the radio was followed by the roar of an engine.
A heavy flatbed truck crashed through the shipping crates behind Dante, speeding directly toward him.
