Chapter 4 - The Salt on the Docks
Warehouse 14 smelled of dead fish, industrial grease, and the sharp, chemical tang of new paint. The rain on the corrugated tin roof created a roar so loud that two men could scream at each other from five feet away and hear nothing but the storm.
Marco Moretti stood under the yellow glare of a single halogen work light, his expensive wool coat thrown over a stack of wooden pallets. He was thirty-two, handsome in the dark, heavy-browed way that ran in the Moretti bloodline, but his face was slick with sweat despite the draft coming off the Atlantic.
Two men in black tracksuits were crowbarring the lid off a crate marked Machinery Parts - Naples.
"Move faster," Marco snapped, his eyes darting toward the darkness of the warehouse doors every few seconds. "The digital upload from the hall was intercepted by the Chicago server, but the local agent needs the physical drive by five AM or the warrant won't clear the judge before court opens."
"The warrant won't clear anyway, cousin."
The voice came from the dark spaces between the shipping containers.
Marco froze. The two men with the crowbars didn't even have time to reach for their waistbands before the red laser dots of three different sniper scopes appeared on their chests. They dropped their tools, the iron clattering against the concrete floor like a pair of dropped coins.
Aleandro stepped into the yellow light. He wasn't wearing his coat. He was in his shirtsleeves, his cuffs rolled up twice, his hands empty but his fingers loose, relaxed. Behind him, four Moretti enforcers materialized from the shadows like wolves coming out of a wood.
"Aleandro," Marco said, his voice cracking slightly before he forced his features into a smirk. "What are you doing down here? You should be in bed with your bride. The wedding is in two weeks."
"The wedding is cancelled, Marco," Aleandro said, his voice perfectly conversationable. He walked up to the open crate, reached inside, and pulled out a small, heavy brick wrapped in silver cellophane. Not machinery. Not heroin. "Federal evidence files. The original ledgers from the 2018 truck hijackings. The ones my father thought he burned."
Aleandro turned the silver package over in his hand, his eyes never leaving his cousin’s face. "How long?"
Marco’s smirk vanished, replaced by the ugly, raw hatred of a second son who had spent his life eating the scraps from the head table. "Three years, Aleandro. Since the day your father died and gave you the ring instead of me. Sophia wasn't a clerk’s daughter. She’s Sophia Vance. Her brother was the prosecutor you had put in a wheelchair in Boston five years ago."
The revelation was a small, sharp knife, but Aleandro didn't let it show. He didn't blink.
"She hates you," Marco spat, stepping forward until one of the enforcers pressed the barrel of a suppressed pistol into the side of his neck. "Every time you touched her, every time you bought her a diamond, she wanted to cut your throat. She came to me because she knew I had the keys to the vault. We’re leaving for Montreal tomorrow morning, Aleandro. The federal grand jury is signing the indictment at nine. You're done."
Aleandro looked down at the silver brick in his hand, then tossed it back into the crate. It hit the wood with a dull, heavy thud.
"The Chicago task force isn't coming, Marco," Aleandro said softly. "Bernardo changed the routing codes on the house router two hours before the party started. The upload your little bride sent tonight didn't go to the feds. It went to a server in Panama that I own. The only thing the Chicago task force received tonight was three gigabytes of old Sicilian opera."
Marco’s eyes went wide, the realization hit him like a physical blow, his knees buckling slightly against the weight of the gun at his neck.
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"As for Montreal," Aleandro continued, turning his back on his cousin as he walked toward the door. "I hear the winters there are very cold. But you won't need a coat where you're going."
He didn't look back when the suppressed pistols clicked in the dark behind him.
