Chapter 25 - THE SAFEHOUSE IN SOUTH BOSTON
By nightfall, cold rain had begun to fall over the narrow brick alleys of South Boston. In an abandoned three-story brick warehouse near the industrial canal—a facility that had once served as an illegal speakeasy during Prohibition—Victor Rossi sat behind a makeshift wooden desk, nervously smoking a thick cigar.
Surrounding him were four heavily armed men, their leather jackets wet from the rain outside. On the desk sat two encrypted satellite phones and a duffel bag stuffed with stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
"Where is Sterling?" Rossi spat, tapping his ashes onto the floorboards. "He was supposed to call two hours ago to confirm that the merger papers were tied up in court!"
"His office isn't answering, Boss," one of his men replied, looking out the grime-covered window into the dark alley below. "And the crane operator we hired hasn't checked in either. Something went wrong at the pier."
Rossi stood up, his face contorting in rage as he grabbed the duffel bag. "Pack the gear. We're moving to the safehouse in Providence tonight. If Vale and his wife survived that container drop, they’re coming for us."
Before his men could grab their weapons, the heavy iron service door at the end of the warehouse floor exploded inward with a deafening metallic CRASH.
The steel door tore off its hinges, flying five yards across the concrete floor before smashing into a stack of wooden pallets. Through the cloud of dust and sparks, a towering black shadow strode into the room with absolute, unhurried dominance.
It was Adrian Moretti.
Behind him marched Dante Vance and six elite security officers, their tactical sidearms drawn and held with military precision. But it was Adrian himself who held the entire room frozen in sheer terror. He wore his dark navy overcoat, his dark hair damp with rain, his gray-blue eyes burning with a cold, lethal intelligence that promised no mercy.
Rossi’s men immediately raised their handguns, but before they could squeeze a single trigger, Dante’s team fired four synchronized, suppressed rounds. The weapons were knocked from the men's hands as they were slammed to the concrete floor, disarmed and pinned within three seconds.
Rossi stumbled backward against his wooden desk, his cigar dropping from his fingers as he reached frantically into his coat pocket for his snub-nosed revolver.
Adrian closed the distance in three long strides. He grabbed Rossi’s wrist with an iron grip that shattered the bones in his forearm with a sickening CRACK, forcing the gun to drop onto the desk.
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Adrian lifted the terrified mobster by his collar with one hand, slamming him against the brick wall so hard the dust rained down from the rafters.
"You brought violence to my pier, Victor," Adrian whispered, his voice a low, terrifying growl that echoed through the hollow warehouse. "You threatened the woman who built my empire... and you threatened the mother of my child."
