Chapter 7 - The Trap at Terminal 4
The storm over the Long Beach shipping port was vicious.
Huge ocean waves slammed against the concrete docks, sending white spray high into the night air. Rain poured sideways, driven by forty-knot wind gusts.
Terminal 4 was a massive, pitch-black industrial warehouse filled with thousands of metal shipping containers stacked forty feet high.
Vincent arrived in a convoy of four black armored SUVs.
Twenty of his elite security operatives, led by Dominic, stepped out into the rain, weapons drawn, forming a tight perimeter around the main entrance.
Vincent walked into the dark warehouse alone, wearing a long black coat, his gold signet ring glistening under his leather gloves.
Inside, suspended fifty feet in the air inside a suspended crane cab, was Old Man Moretti—a seventy-year-old mob boss with a weather-beaten face, sitting in a wheelchair, surrounded by six heavily armed mercenaries.
Tied to a metal chair on the concrete floor below was Arthur Pendelton, the former hotel manager, bruised and bleeding.
“Vincent!” Moretti’s voice echoed through the massive warehouse, amplified by a bullhorn. “You’re late!”
Vincent stood in the center of the open floor, unbothered by the darkness or the surrounding mercenaries.
“You’re getting sloppy, Frank,” Vincent called back, his voice echoing with absolute calm. “Hitting a port terminal? Torturing a hotel manager? You used to have ambition. Now you’re just a desperate old man hiding in a crane.”
Moretti spat over the edge of the cab.
“You took my legal network, Caruso!” Moretti roared. “You ruined my deal with the federal prosecutors! Julian Vance squealed like a pig before my men could silence him!”
“Julian was a fool,” Vincent said. “And you were stupid enough to trust him.”
Moretti sneered, reaching for a remote control in his lap.
“I don't need Julian anymore, Vincent,” Moretti grinned, displaying a small red screen on the remote. “You think you kept that maid and her kid safe in your luxury hotel?”
Vincent’s blood ran cold. His eyes narrowed into slits of deadly rage.
“What did you do, Frank?” Vincent whispered, his voice dangerously low.
“My men didn't hit the hotel, Vincent,” Moretti chuckled darkly. “They didn't need to. Arthur here gave us the master override codes for the 40th floor ventilation system forty-eight hours ago!”
Arthur Pendelton wept from his chair, his face covered in shame. “I... I’m sorry, Mr. Caruso! They threatened my family! I had no choice!”
May you like
Moretti held up the remote.
“Inside that 40th-floor suite right now,” Moretti sneered, “a high-concentration sleeping agent is pumping through the vents. In ten minutes, the heart rate of your sweet little maid and her brave little girl will stop forever... unless you lay down your weapon and sign the transfer of the port docks to my family!”
