Chapter 8 - The Price of LoyaltyBefore Mickey Wallace could level the barrel, Natalie dropped to one knee.
Crack!
Her shot struck Wallace directly in the shoulder, spinning him into a glass display cabinet that shattered into a thousand glittering shards. Wallace screamed, dropping his weapon, clutching his mangled arm on the Persian rug.
Arthur Vance shrieked like a wounded animal, throwing his hands over his balding head, spilling amber whiskey across his silk robe. "Don't shoot! Roman, please! I had no choice!"
I walked into the penthouse, stepping over the groaning enforcer on the floor, my Kimber pointed squarely between Arthur's terrified eyes.
"No choice, Arthur?" I said softly. "You wired four million dollars to Marco Moretti. You gave them the route to kidnap my twelve-year-old niece. You helped murder Marcus Flores five years ago."
At the mention of Marcus Flores, Arthur froze. He looked up, his watery eyes shifting from me to Natalie, who stood beside me, her weapon still trained on Wallace.
"Natalie...?" Arthur stammered, his face turning the color of chalk. "You... you're working with him?"
"I'm finishing what my father started, Uncle Arthur," Natalie said, her voice dropping to a register so cold it sounded like cracking ice. "Now open your encrypted laptop and pull up the corporate ledger for Kinsley Holdings."
"I can't!" Arthur sobbed, trembling uncontrollably. "Donovan will kill me! You don't understand what he’s planning! It’s not just an empire takeover—it’s an extinction event!"
I pressed the cold steel barrel against Arthur's forehead. "You have five seconds to explain that sentence before I let Natalie settle her father's debt."
Arthur broke completely, tears streaming down his flabby cheeks.
"Donovan isn't handing the empire to Moretti!" Arthur blurted out. "He played Moretti from the start! Donovan made a deal with the Special Operations Division of Homeland Security! He’s setting up a massive sting at Pier 42 at noon today. Moretti’s entire leadership is arriving to take delivery of a massive arms cache that Donovan planted in your shipping containers!"
The pieces slammed together in my mind with horrifying clarity.
"Donovan isn't just stealing the company," Natalie whispered, her eyes wide with shock. "He’s framing both Roman and Moretti for an international arms trafficking conspiracy. When the feds breach Pier 42, Roman and Moretti’s top capos will be wiped out or arrested, and Donovan walks away as the heroic, clean government witness who inherits immunity and control of the entire maritime infrastructure."
"He leaves no survivors," Arthur wept. "The federal tactical teams have green-lit lethal force. They think you're armed with military-grade ordinance. Donovan orchestrated the whole thing to wipe the board completely clean!"
I glanced at the gold Rolex on Arthur's wrist. It was 8:15 AM.
Pier 42 was three hours away from becoming a slaughterhouse.
"Give me the master encryption keys to the Port Authority terminal gates," I commanded, pulling Arthur by his collar to his desk. "And the override codes for the security cameras."
Arthur typed with shaking, sweaty fingers. Natalie leaned over his shoulder, memorizing every keystroke, verifying every code.
"Keys confirmed," Natalie said, inserting an encrypted flash drive. "The terminal overrides are downloaded."
"What about Mickey?" Calvin asked from the doorway, gesturing to the wounded enforcer bleeding out on the rug.
"Tie him to the radiator," I said coldly. "Leave a burner phone dialed to the FBI field office with an anonymous tip. Let Donovan explain why his favorite attack dog is sitting in his lawyer's private penthouse."
As we turned toward the elevator, Arthur reached out, his hand clutching at Natalie's coat.
"Natalie... please. I was your family. Your father was my brother. I tried to protect him, I swear—"
Natalie stopped. She looked down at the pathetic, broken man she had hunted for half a decade.
"My father died alone in the freezing water because you wanted a house in the West Village," she said softly, pulling her coat out of his grasp. "You aren't family, Arthur. You're just a liability being liquidated."
As the elevator doors closed on Arthur's weeping, my phone buzzed in my pocket. A private number.
I answered and held it to my ear.
"Roman," Donovan's voice purred through the line. "I see you paid Arthur a visit. Always predictable. But you're too late. The first container has already arrived at Pier 42. And guess who just showed up to oversee the reception?"
May you like
My pulse spiked. "Who, Donovan?"
"Marco Moretti himself," Donovan said with a sinister chuckle. "And he brought fifty heavily armed hitters who think you're waiting inside to sign over the territory. See you at the docks, boss. Try not to die before the feds get there."
Related Stories
