Chapter 5 - The War at the Docks
The sky over Port Newark was a slate-gray sheet of low clouds, pouring a cold, steady drizzle over the rows of rust-colored shipping containers lining the pier.
Inside Warehouse 14—a massive, vaulted industrial space smelling of salt, diesel, and wet concrete—thirty men had gathered around a long conference table improvised from wooden shipping crates.
At the head of the table sat Silvio Moretti.
He was fifty-eight, with slicked-back silver hair, a dark camel-hair coat, and a massive gold signet ring on his right pinky finger. Surrounding him were six of the syndicate’s most powerful captains and two representatives from the allied Lucchesi family from New York.
"We all know why we're here," Silvio announced, his voice echoing loudly against the high corrugated steel walls. He took a slow drag from his cigar, letting the blue smoke drift up into the rafters. "My nephew Dante has been compromised by grief. He has spent three weeks sitting in a hospital room, neglecting the docks, letting our shipping routes fall into chaos while his brother lays brain-dead."
A low murmur of agreement passed among two of the older captains.
"It pains my heart to say it," Silvio continued, faking a solemn, regretful expression as he rested his hands on the wooden table. "But the Moretti family cannot be run by a ghost. Dante is stepping down. I will be assuming leadership of the syndicate effective immediately."
"Is that so, Uncle?"
The heavy steel slide-door at the far end of the warehouse rattled violently as it was thrown open.
Silvio froze, the cigar dropping from his fingers onto the concrete floor.
Walking through the doorway was Dante Moretti, wearing a tailored black coat, flanked by twelve heavily armed enforcers carrying automatic weapons.
The warehouse went dead silent. Captains scrambled backward, their chair legs scraping against the floor, hands instinctively dropping toward their shoulder holsters.
"Dante," Silvio said, recovering his composure quickly, a thin, patronizing smile spreading across his lips. "You shouldn't be here. You belong at your brother's bedside. We are just handling family business—"
"Family business?" Dante mocked, stepping slowly down the center aisle of the warehouse, his slate-gray eyes locked onto Silvio with pure, unadulterated venom. "Like the business you conducted three weeks ago outside Newark when you paid two hitmen fifty grand to put bullets in my brother's chest?"
The room exploded into shocked gasps.
"That's a lie!" Silvio shouted, standing up so fast his chair fell backward onto the concrete. "He’s gone mad! Grief has broken his head! Guards, clear him out of here!"
Not a single guard moved. The men surrounding the table looked between Dante and Silvio, sensing the lethal energy surging through the air.
"Or maybe," Dante continued smoothly, stopping ten feet from the table, "we should talk about the two million dollars you wired to Dr. Vance's Swiss account to keep Matteo paralyzed while you convinced me to pull his life support?"
Silvio’s face drained of every drop of color. "You... you have no proof of these wild accusations! Vance is a respected doctor! You're hallucinating, Dante!"
"He doesn't need proof, Silvio," a raspy, powerful voice called out from the doorway behind Dante.
Everyone snapped their heads around.
Rolling through the heavy steel doorway in a high-backed leather wheelchair, pushed by Nurse Nina Patel, was Matteo Moretti.
He was wearing a dark suit, his face still pale, his throat wrapped in a soft white bandage, but his eyes were bright, fierce, and burning with a terrifying life. In his lap rested a heavy, silver .45 caliber handgun.
"Matteo..." one of the senior captains gasped, crossing himself in disbelief. "Mother of God... he’s alive!"
Silvio backed away until his thighs hit the edge of the shipping crate table, his eyes wide with absolute, hysterical terror, looking as if he had just seen a ghost walk out of a grave. "No... no, it's impossible! Vance said... Vance said you were brain-dead!"
"Vance was lying," Matteo rasped out, his dark eyes fixed on his uncle. "Just like you lied when you hugged my brother and wept at my bedside while I lay there hearing every word you said, trapped inside my own body."
Matteo raised his right hand, pointing his silver handgun straight at Silvio’s chest.
"You tried to freeze me, Uncle," Matteo growled, his voice echoing through the massive warehouse like thunder. "Now it's my turn."
Silvio panicked, reaching wildly inside his coat for his own gun—
BANG!
A single gunshot shattered the air in Warehouse 14.
Silvio collapsed backward onto the wooden table, clutching his shoulder as he screamed in pain, his gun clattering uselessly onto the concrete floor.
Dante stepped forward, catching Silvio by his lapels, pulling him up until their faces were inches apart.
"Your life is forfeited, Silvio," Dante whispered coldly into his ear. "And every cent you stole from this family is being transferred to a trust fund for a three-year-old girl who has ten times the heart you ever had."
Dante signaled to his men. Two heavy enforcers stepped forward, dragging the weeping, bleeding traitor out toward the dark docks behind the warehouse, where a boat was already waiting in the cold rain.
Dante turned back to face the remaining captains in the room. He buttoned his coat, his posture regal, absolute, and unchallenged.
May you like
"The Moretti family remains whole," Dante announced, his voice carrying the weight of an absolute monarch. "And if anyone else in this room has a problem with how my brother and I run this city... speak now."
Not a single captain spoke. Every man in the room bowed his head in silent, absolute submission to the true Dons of North Jersey.
