Chapter 7 - THE RECKONING AT THE DOCKS
The storm broke three days later at Pier 44, one of Gabriel’s primary shipping terminals along the Boston waterfront. The rain was lashing down in sheets, turning the asphalt black and slick. Marcus Vale stood near the edge of the concrete pier, surrounded by four armed thugs he had hired from an out-of-state syndicate—men desperate enough to take a contract against Gabriel Sterling. Marcus looked disheveled, his expensive overcoat soaked through, his face pale and twisted with manic desperation. He held a heavy-duty encrypted satellite phone in his hand. A black Lincoln Navigator pulled up through the downpour, its headlights cutting blinding white beams through the rain. The doors opened, and Gabriel stepped out alone, not even bothering to hold an umbrella. He walked slowly toward Marcus, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his heavy wool coat. “You’re losing your touch, Marcus,” Gabriel called out, his voice carrying easily over the roar of the crashing waves. “Hiring mercenaries from New York? They won’t survive the night in Boston, and neither will you.” Marcus raised a pistol, his hands shaking violently as he aimed it at Gabriel’s chest. “Stay back, Sterling! You took everything! You ruined my life, my company, my reputation—and you stole my wife!” “You gave her away, Marcus,” Gabriel said, stopping ten feet away, completely unfazed by the barrel of the gun. “You handed her an open marriage because you thought she was a decoration. You forgot that decorations can become executioners.” “Kill him!” Marcus screamed to his hired muscle. But before the men could even draw their weapons, the shadows along the edge of the container stacks erupted into motion. Gabriel’s elite security detail swarmed out of the darkness like phantoms, disarming the mercenaries in seconds with brutal, silent efficiency. One of them kicked the gun out of Marcus’s hand, sending it skittering across the wet concrete into the dark water of the harbor. Marcus fell to his knees, gasping for breath as the rain beat down on him. Gabriel stepped forward, looking down at the broken man who had once ruled Boston’s high society. “You’re bankrupt, Marcus. The feds have your accounts, the board has ousted you, and your name is mud,” Gabriel said coldly. “You are completely alone.” Gabriel turned his back on him, walking back toward his car as his men hauled Marcus to his feet. As Gabriel opened the door, he looked back over his shoulder. “Let him go home,” Gabriel instructed his men. “Let him live in that empty mansion with his ghosts. That’s a punishment worse than death.”
