Chapter 6 - The Glass and the Gavel
The heavy oak doors of my private study did not creak when Grant opened them; they swung inward with the oiled, silent precision of a vault.
Salvatore Marino sat in my grandfather’s leather wingback chair, his heavy gold-ringed fingers resting on the mahogany armrests as if he already held the deed to Manhattan. At seventy, Salvatore looked like a man carved from old granite and bad intentions, his silver hair slicked back, his tailored charcoal suit unbuttoned to reveal a thick gold chain resting against a graying chest hair.
He didn't stand up when I walked in. He didn't have to. The marriage contract on the desk between us gave him the illusion that we were already peers instead of predators circling the same carcass.
"You smell like hospital disinfectant and wet asphalt, Vincent," Salvatore rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "Not the fragrance of a groom on the eve of his wedding. Vanessa’s crying in her suite. She thinks you’re down at the waterfront negotiating with dockers. Is that where you were?"
I shrugged off my heavy, rain-soaked overcoat, letting it drop unceremoniously onto the floor beside the door. Grant slipped out into the corridor, quietly clicking the latch shut behind him, leaving me alone with the man who thought he owned my future.
"I had business to attend to," I said, walking slowly toward the desk.
Salvatore’s eyes narrowed, a cold, predatory light flickering in their depths. "Business. Right. The docks. Let me remind you something about business, boy. When you marry Vanessa tomorrow, you aren't just marrying a woman with a pretty face. You’re marrying an army. My trucks move your containers. My men secure your perimeter. And in exchange, you keep your nose clean and your eyes on the bottom line."
I leaned both hands against the mahogany desk, bringing my face down to his level. The scent of expensive scotch and cigar smoke washed over me, thick and cloying.
"Your trucks move my containers because my father wrote the shipping contracts that granted your family access to the North River in nineteen-ninety-eight," I whispered, every word measured and icy. "And if I decide tomorrow morning that I don't like the tone of your voice, Salvatore, those containers stop moving. The port authority audits your manifests by Monday noon, and your private security force becomes a federal RICO target by Tuesday."
Salvatore didn't flinch, but a muscle twitched violently along his jawline. He smiled, a thin, humorless stretch of lips that exposed too many teeth.
"You think you're invincible because you inherited a crown," Salvatore growled, standing up slowly to tower over the desk. "You forget that a crown is just heavy metal waiting for someone to cut the head off."
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed violently in my breast pocket—the direct, encrypted satellite line from Boston.
I pulled it out, answering right in front of him.
May you like
"Report," I commanded.
"Boss," Grant’s voice came through the secure earpiece, breathless and frantic. "We have a situation at the Boston medical facility. The transport convoy carrying Chloe Ellis... it never arrived."
