Chapter 7 - The Enforcer and the Waterfront Trap
My brain struggled to process the impossible image on the catwalk.
The traitorous guard—the man who had locked the restaurant doors, held a gun to Sofia’s head, and taken three bullets to the chest from Lorenzo—was standing perfectly healthy, aiming a sniper rifle at Adrian.
“You staged it,” Adrian breathed, realization washing over his face as he stared at his uncle. “You shooting him at the restaurant… it was a performance.”
Lorenzo coughed, clutching his bleeding shoulder. “Vittoria is a paranoid bitch, Adrian. I knew she’d double-cross me eventually. I needed an inside man on her payroll. Marcus here,” Lorenzo nodded weakly toward the catwalk, “has been my silent partner for three years. We wore the Kevlar, we bought the squibs. We just needed a reason for Vittoria to think I had turned on her, so she’d leave me alone long enough to empty the offshore accounts.”
“But Vittoria’s men shot you,” I pointed out, gesturing to the three dead tactical operatives on the floor and Lorenzo’s bleeding shoulder.
“Vittoria doesn’t like loose ends,” Marcus called down from the catwalk, his rifle laser dancing across Adrian’s chest. “She sent a clean-up crew to wipe us all out. Luckily, I got here first. Now, drop the gun, boss, or I paint the concrete with your brains.”
Adrian didn’t move. His face was a mask of cold, calculating rage.
“You have the routing numbers, Lorenzo,” Adrian said, ignoring the sniper. “But you’re bleeding out. You need a hospital, not a bank account.”
“I’ll survive,” Lorenzo sneered, closing the laptop and shoving it into a waterproof duffel bag. “Marcus is going to drive me to a private clinic. And you three are going to take the fall for Vittoria’s dead hit squad.”
“Shoot him, Marcus,” Lorenzo ordered.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the deafening crack of the rifle.
But the gunshot never came.
Instead, a chilling, familiar voice echoed from the shadows near the entrance of the cannery.
“Nobody is shooting anyone. Because nobody is leaving this building with my money.”
We all spun around.
Stepping out from behind a rusted forklift was Vittoria Moretti.
She was no longer wearing her elegant evening gown. She wore a sleek black trench coat, holding a terrifyingly large, suppressed submachine gun. Flanking her were four more heavily armed men, their weapons raised and aimed at all of us.
Lorenzo’s face drained of the last of its color. “Vittoria.”
“Hello, Lorenzo,” Vittoria said, her voice dripping with venomous calm. “Did you really think I wouldn’t put a tracker on Marcus? You underestimate me. You always have.”
She gestured lazily with her free hand. Two of her men raised their weapons and fired a hail of bullets at the catwalk.
Marcus didn’t even have time to scream. He was thrown backward over the railing, plummeting twenty feet and crashing onto the concrete floor with a sickening thud. He was dead instantly.
Vittoria stepped gracefully over his body, walking toward Lorenzo, who was frozen in terror on his knees.
“The laptop, Lorenzo,” Vittoria demanded, holding out her hand.
“You’re insane, Vittoria,” Lorenzo gasped, clutching the duffel bag. “If you kill us, the commission will tear you apart. You can’t slaughter your whole family and expect to rule the syndicate.”
“Oh, I won’t slaughter my family,” Vittoria smiled, a terrifying, maternal curve of her lips. She turned her cold eyes toward Adrian. “Adrian is going to tragically die in a shootout with a rival gang. And you, Lorenzo, are going to be found dead with the money, framed as the traitor.”
She looked at me and my grandfather. “And the waitress and the driver are just collateral damage.”
“You don’t have to do this, Mom,” Adrian said, his voice surprisingly steady. He lowered his gun, holding it loosely at his side. “You won. You have the money. You have the syndicate. Let Frank and Nora walk away. They’re nobodies.”
“I’m not a nobody!” I shouted, surprising myself and everyone in the room.
I took a step forward, ignoring my grandfather’s desperate grab for my arm.
“I know what you did,” I said, glaring directly into Vittoria’s eyes. “I know you forced Matteo to abandon Isabella. I know you stole Adrian and Sofia to secure your power. You’re not a mafia queen, Vittoria. You’re just a desperate, barren woman who had to steal someone else’s life to feel important.”
Vittoria’s eyes flared with pure, unadulterated fury. For the first time all night, her perfectly composed mask cracked.
“You little tramp,” Vittoria hissed, raising the submachine gun directly at my face.
“Wait!” Adrian shouted, stepping in front of me.
But I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I was trying to buy time.
Because while Vittoria was monologuing, I had reached into my apron pocket.
Back at the restaurant, when Vittoria had dropped her phone under the table in the chaos of the charcoal rescue, I had picked it up. I hadn’t known what to do with it then. But I knew what to do with it now.
I held Vittoria’s sleek black smartphone high in the air, my thumb hovering over the screen.
“Before you shoot me, Vittoria,” I yelled, my voice echoing in the massive cannery. “You might want to check the group chat I just sent a mass text to.”
Vittoria froze, her finger tightening on the trigger. “What are you talking about?”
“Your phone wasn’t locked,” I lied smoothly, my heart hammering against my ribs. “I just sent a mass text to every single contact in your phone book. Every captain, every lieutenant, every rival boss in Chicago. It contains a photograph of Isabella’s confession letter, proving you have no biological claim to the Moretti throne, and a text explaining exactly how you planned to kill Adrian tonight to steal the trust fund.”
Vittoria stared at me, absolute panic washing over her face.
“You’re bluffing,” she whispered.
“Check your own pockets,” I challenged, waving the phone. “You dropped it under the table at Bellamore.”
Vittoria instinctively patted her trench coat pocket. It was empty.
In that single second of distraction, as Vittoria and her men looked at the phone in my hand, my grandfather moved.
Frank Bell, the eighty-one-year-old driver, didn’t fire his snub-nosed revolver at Vittoria.
He fired it directly at the massive, rusted electrical fuse box on the wall behind her.
The bullet struck the heavy breakers.
May you like
Sparks showered the room in a blinding explosion of electricity, and the entire cannery was plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
“Get down!” Adrian roared in the dark, grabbing my waist and pulling me to the concrete as automatic gunfire erupted blindly above our heads.
