Chapter 10 - Midnight at Pier 42
The midnight air off the Hudson River was thick with freezing mist, tasting of salt, diesel fuel, and decaying autumn seaweed.
Pier 42 jutted out into the dark water like a broken finger, illuminated only by the harsh amber glare of overhead industrial sodium lights mounted on towering shipping cranes. The massive metal containers stacked three high along the dock cast long, jagged shadows that warped and twisted in the wind.
I stepped out of the shadow of a rusted warehouse container, my black wool coat flapping against my knees in the gale.
I was alone. No guards trailing fifty yards behind. No sniper perched on the gantry cranes. Just me, the Walther PPK tucked securely beneath my left arm, and an old score waiting to be settled.
“I knew you’d come, nephew!”
The raspy voice echoed off the corrugated metal walls of the container stacks.
From the center of the open concrete clearing near the edge of the pier, a single figure stepped out from the fog. Viktor Vitali. He looked older, his hair completely silver, wearing a heavy trench coat with the collar turned up against the chill. In his right hand, he held a heavy-caliber revolver, pointed loosely toward the ground. Behind him, standing near the edge of the water, two masked enforcers held a heavy wooden crate—though there was no sign of Camille or Sophie.
“Where are they, Viktor?” I called out, my voice cutting cleanly through the wind.
Viktor stopped twenty feet away, a twisted, yellow-toothed smile spreading across his weathered face. “Safe, nephew. For now. Locked away in a secure van five miles inland. They’ll only stay safe if you brought the transfer documents I asked for.”
“You didn't ask for documents, Viktor,” I said, walking slowly toward him, my hands clearly visible at my sides. “You asked for a execution.”
“Semantics,” Viktor chuckled darkly, raising the revolver slightly. “You always were too smart for your own good, Alessandro. Just like your father. He thought he could civilize the family. He thought he could turn a syndicate into a Fortune 500 company without paying the blood tax.”
“My father died because you were a coward who couldn't accept that your time had passed,” I stepped closer, the distance between us closing to ten feet.
Viktor’s smile vanished, replaced by a flash of genuine, venomous hatred. “I built this family! You inherited it on a silver platter! And now you’re giving it away to artists and bastards!”
He raised the revolver fully, leveling it directly at my chest.
“End of the line, nephew. Say hello to your father for me.”
Before Viktor’s finger could squeeze the trigger, a sharp, metallic click echoed from the top of the container crane fifty feet above us.
Marco’s voice rang out through the freezing night air, amplified by a tactical speaker:
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“Drop the gun, Viktor. You’re surrounded.”
Viktor’s head snapped upward in shock, realizing too late that the slaughterhouse he had prepared for me was actually a trap he had walked right into.
