Chapter 7 - THE WRATH OF THE DON
The war that followed was spoken of in terrified whispers in the backrooms of New York for a decade. It was not a tactical engagement; it was a massacre.
Adrian Moretti unchained the full, horrifying might of his syndicate. Fueled by a potent mixture of betrayal, heartbreak, and a desperate need to cleanse the world for a woman and a child he could never have, Adrian became a force of absolute destruction.
He did not negotiate. He did not accept surrenders.
In the span of four days, seven of Vincenzo’s top lieutenants were found dead in various, gruesome circumstances. The Volkov syndicate, realizing they had provoked a sleeping dragon, attempted to flee the city. Adrian’s men intercepted them at the docks, burning three million dollars' worth of Russian narcotics and sending Volkov’s nephew back to Moscow in a pine box.
Vincenzo’s power base crumbled like dry dirt. His men defected, terrified of the relentless, methodical slaughter orchestrated by the wounded Don.
Finally, Vincenzo was cornered.
He was hiding in an abandoned meatpacking plant in the Meatpacking District, surrounded by his last six loyal men. It was a desperate, pathetic last stand.
Adrian did not send a hit squad. He went himself.
Dressed in a black tactical turtleneck and his charcoal overcoat, his wounded arm heavily medicated and strapped tightly, Adrian kicked open the rusted metal doors of the plant. Lucas and a team of eight elite enforcers fanned out beside him, moving with military precision.
The firefight was brief and brutally one-sided. Vincenzo’s panicked men fired wildly into the dark; Adrian’s men fired with surgical accuracy. Within two minutes, the factory floor was silent, save for the dripping of condensation from the ceiling and the heavy breathing of the survivors.
Adrian walked slowly through the hanging plastic strips of the freezer section. The cold air bit at his face.
He found Vincenzo crawling toward a rusted side exit, his leg shattered by a shotgun blast. The spider tattoo on his neck looked pathetic now, smeared with dirt and his own blood.
Adrian stepped on the middle of Vincenzo’s back, pinning him to the icy floor.
“Adrian, wait!” Vincenzo screamed, choking on his own panic. “We can make a deal! I have offshore accounts! I have politicians in my pocket! I can give you everything!”
Adrian looked down at the man who had been his brother, his confidant, his right hand. He felt nothing. No anger, no sadness, no triumph. Just the cold, mechanical necessity of removing a cancer.
“You put a bomb on my car,” Adrian said softly, his voice echoing in the cavernous freezer. “That was business. Ambition. I can understand that.”
Adrian drew his suppressed pistol, pressing the cold barrel to the back of Vincenzo’s head.
“But you sent men to kill a six-year-old girl and her mother. You brought your filth into the only clean thing in my life. For that, Vinnie, there is no deal in hell that can save you.”
“Adrian, please—!”
Phut.
The suppressed shot was quiet. Vincenzo’s body went limp.
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Adrian holstered his weapon. He turned and walked out of the freezing plant into the cool night air of the city. He looked up at the stars, obscured by the glaring city lights. The empire was secure. The threat was eliminated.
The monster had done his job. Now, it was time for the ghost to disappear.
