Chapter 7 - THE TRIBUNAL OF WOLVES
The heavy sliding doors of Warehouse 19 rumbled open.
The freezing night wind swept into the building, carrying swirling flakes of snow.
A single silhouette walked through the threshold.
Adrien Voss.
He was completely unarmed in plain sight.
His hands were empty, held loosely at his sides.
He wore an open black trench coat over his dark suit.
His gaze swept over the warehouse with clinical precision.
He saw the four snipers stationed on the upper steel catwalks.
He saw the six guards flanking Moretti.
Then his eyes found Isabella tied to the pillar.
And the small, trembling boy huddled on the wooden pallet.
Adrien’s heart clenched in his chest.
The boy looked just like her.
The same wide, dark eyes.
The same stubborn tilt of the chin.
Adrien’s gaze met Isabella’s.
For a fraction of a second, the cold mask on his face softened.
I am here, his eyes told her.
You are safe.
Isabella’s breath caught in her throat.
A tear spilled down her cheek, cutting a clean path through the soot on her skin.
Moretti stepped forward, spreading his arms wide in mock welcome.
“The great Adrien Voss!” Moretti boomed.
“Walking into my parlor like an obedient schoolboy!”
Adrien stopped ten paces away.
He didn't look at the guns pointed at his chest.
“Release the boy, Vincente,” Adrien said quietly.
“His fight is not with you.”
Moretti sneered, taking another drag from his cigar.
“Everything in this room is my fight, Adrien.”
“Your father stole the north docks from me thirty years ago.”
“Your family treated the Morettis like street dogs.”
“Now, you hand over the master logistics keys to the entire Great Lakes freight network.”
“Or I feed this girl and her brat brother to the Calumet river sturgeon.”
Adrien remained motionless.
“The logistics keys are useless to you, Vincente.”
Moretti’s eyes narrowed.
“Don't play games with me, boy!”
“Ten minutes ago,” Adrien said, checking his vintage platinum watch, “federal agents raided your offshore holding accounts in Wilmington.”
“Your private accounts in Zurich have been frozen by international court order.”
“And two squads of state police are currently dismantling your pharmaceutical labs in Cicero.”
Moretti’s face flushed an ugly, mottled purple.
“You lie!”
“Call your lawyer,” Adrien murmured.
Moretti reached into his coat with a shaking hand and pulled out his satellite phone.
He dialed three digits.
He held the phone to his ear.
The color drained from his face within four seconds.
He lowered the phone slowly, his breathing turning ragged.
“You... you gave our family files to the feds?” Moretti choked, horrified.
“You broke the syndicate omertà?”
“There is no omertà for men who butcher children, Vincente,” Adrien said.
His voice dropped an octave, resonating with lethal finality.
“You are bankrupt.”
“You are indicted.”
“Your empire died five minutes ago.”
Moretti’s eyes went wild with rabid desperation.
He threw his cigar onto the concrete.
“Kill him!” Moretti shrieked to his catwalk snipers.
“Shoot him down!”
Nothing happened.
The catwalks remained utterly silent.
Moretti looked up, his jaw dropping.
Slumped over the steel railings forty feet above were his four snipers.
Red laser dots began dancing across Moretti’s chest.
From the high shadows of the grain chutes, Marco and six Voss sharpshooters leveled suppressed rifles at the floor.
“My house,” Adrien whispered, taking a slow step forward.
“My city.”
The guards around Moretti exchanged panicked glances.
Two of them threw their weapons onto the concrete and raised their hands in surrender.
“Traitors!” Moretti screamed, drawing a heavy chrome revolver from his waistband.
He didn't aim at Adrien.
He spun on his heel and aimed the barrel straight at little Leo.
“If I go down,” Moretti roared, “the Jenkins bloodline ends tonight!”
Isabella shrieked, throwing her body forward against the zip-ties with such violence that the plastic sliced into her skin.
May you like
“NO!”
Adrien moved faster than human thought.
