Chapter 6 - THE BETRAYAL ON THE DOCK
The rain hammered relentlessly against the windshield of the sedan, but inside the car, all I could hear was the frantic, erratic beating of my own heart.
Marco.
Luca’s most trusted man. The security chief who had stood by his side for a decade. He was standing on the wooden dock of the lakefront boathouse, holding an umbrella over the woman who had orchestrated the coup, completely unharmed.
“He’s alive,” Nico breathed, his voice trembling not with relief, but with absolute, horrifying realization. “The blood in the warehouse... it was staged. Marco sold us out.”
The puzzle pieces snapped together with a sickening clarity.
Marco was the one who had urged Nico into the SUV. Marco was the one who drove us straight to the warehouse where Dominic was waiting. Marco was the one who had conveniently ‘gone to check the perimeter’ right before Dominic’s men pulled Nico out of the car.
“He’s working for the Russians,” I whispered, gripping the dashboard. “Marco was the inside man. That’s how the Russians bypassed the perimeter alarms at the estate.”
Nico’s hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were bone-white. The betrayal of Vanessa was one thing; she was an outsider who had manipulated her way in. But Marco was family. Marco had taught Nico how to shoot a gun when he was twelve.
“They have the lockbox,” Nico said, his voice dropping to a low, lethal register.
Through the rain, we watched Marco place the heavy, steel lockbox onto a wooden crate on the dock. Vanessa pulled a small digital audio recorder from her purse. She held it close to the biometric speaker on the front of the box.
Even from fifty yards away, I could faintly hear the recorded voice of Luca Moretti carrying over the wind.
“Authorization override. Moretti, Luca.”
A small green light on the front of the lockbox flared in the darkness. The heavy steel clasps disengaged with a loud, mechanical clack.
Vanessa smiled triumphantly, pushing the lid open.
Inside were neat, stacked rows of bearer bonds. Twenty million dollars in untraceable, physical paper. The key to buying the Chicago underworld.
“We have to stop them,” Nico said, reaching for the handgun resting on his lap.
“Nico, no!” I grabbed his arm, pulling him back. “Marco is a trained killer! He has an assault rifle slung over his shoulder! If you step out of this car, he will gun you down before you can even raise that pistol!”
“If they leave with that box, my father loses everything!” Nico argued fiercely, his eyes blazing with desperate tears. “I can't let them walk away!”
“You can't save the empire if you’re dead!” I shouted back, holding his arm tightly. “Your father wants you alive! That’s all he cares about!”
Nico stared at me, the conflict tearing him apart. The mafia heir warring with the terrified son.
Before he could make a decision, a sudden, blinding light washed over the boathouse dock.
A sleek, black speedboat tore out from the darkness of the lake, its powerful engines roaring. It cut through the churning water and slammed aggressively against the wooden pylons of the dock.
Standing at the helm of the boat, illuminated by the halogen spotlights, was a man wearing a soaked, blood-stained white shirt and black tactical trousers. He held a massive, military-grade shotgun.
It was Luca Moretti.
He was alive. And he looked like the devil himself rising from the water.
“Dad!” Nico screamed, his voice cracking with absolute joy.
Luca didn't hesitate. He didn't offer a warning.
As the boat slammed into the dock, Luca racked the shotgun with a deafening clack-clack and opened fire.
The heavy slug tore through the wooden crate holding the lockbox, shattering it into splinters. The steel box tumbled backward, crashing onto the wet planks of the dock.
Vanessa shrieked in terror, dropping the umbrella and scrambling frantically backward, crawling through the mud to get away from the gunfire.
Marco was faster. The traitorous security chief instantly raised his assault rifle, unleashing a hail of automatic gunfire toward the speedboat.
Bullets chewed through the fiberglass hull of the boat, shattering the windshield. Luca dove behind the heavy metal console, returning fire blindly over the top.
The dock erupted into a chaotic, deafening war zone.
“We have to help him!” Nico yelled, throwing his car door open.
“Nico, wait!” I cried, but he was already out in the rain, sprinting toward the boathouse with his handgun raised.
I cursed, grabbing the rusted iron crowbar from the floorboard, and scrambled out of the car, sprinting after him into the storm.
Nico didn't run wildly. He used the cover of the parked armored SUV, flanking Marco’s position on the dock.
Marco was entirely focused on suppressing Luca on the boat. He didn't see Nico approaching from the darkness of the shoreline.
Nico raised his pistol with shaking hands, aiming at the man who had been a second father to him.
“Marco!” Nico roared over the gunfire.
Marco spun around, his eyes widening in shock as he saw the twenty-one-year-old boy he had betrayed standing twenty feet away, holding a gun.
Marco hesitated for a fraction of a second. A fatal mistake.
Nico pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The bullet struck Marco squarely in the right shoulder.
Marco grunted in pain, his assault rifle dropping from his hands as he stumbled backward, collapsing onto the wet wooden planks of the dock.
The gunfire stopped. The only sound was the crashing of the waves and the heavy rain.
Luca cautiously rose from behind the boat console, his shotgun leveled. When he saw Nico standing on the shore, the lethal, terrifying Mafia Don vanished in an instant.
“Nico!” Luca shouted, his voice thick with overwhelming relief. He threw the shotgun into the boat, vaulted over the side, and sprinted down the dock.
Nico dropped the handgun, falling to his knees in the mud.
Luca crashed into him, wrapping his massive arms around his son, burying his face in Nico’s neck, completely indifferent to the rain and the mud.
“I thought I lost you,” Luca wept openly, rocking his son back and forth. “I thought they took you.”
“I’m okay, Dad,” Nico sobbed, hugging his father fiercely. “I’m okay. I’m right here.”
I stood a few feet away, leaning against the iron crowbar, tears streaming down my face as I watched them. It was a beautiful, heartbreaking moment of pure, unconditional love in the middle of a war zone.
But the war wasn't over.
A sudden, sharp scrape of metal against wood drew my attention to the end of the dock.
Vanessa.
She had crawled through the mud and reached the heavy steel lockbox. She was frantically stuffing handfuls of the untraceable bearer bonds into her soaked designer purse.
“Hey!” I yelled, gripping the crowbar and sprinting toward her.
Vanessa looked up, her eyes wide with manic panic. She abandoned the rest of the bonds, clutching her purse tightly, and scrambled to her feet.
She didn't run toward the shore. She ran toward the end of the dock, where a small, secondary motorboat was tied off. Her escape route.
I wasn't going to let her leave. She had destroyed this family. She had manipulated a father and son to the point of breaking.
I lunged forward, swinging the crowbar at her legs to trip her.
I missed.
Vanessa spun around, her beautiful face contorted into a mask of pure, ugly rage. She reached into her trench coat and pulled out a small, pearl-handled derringer pistol.
She aimed it directly at my chest.
“You pathetic little maid,” Vanessa sneered, her finger tightening on the trigger. “You ruined everything!”
I froze, staring down the barrel of the gun, my heart stopping in my chest.
Before she could pull the trigger, a hand shot out from the wooden planks beneath her feet.
Marco.
The bleeding security chief hadn't passed out. He had reached out and grabbed Vanessa’s ankle with a brutal, desperate grip.
“You promised me the city, Vanessa,” Marco snarled, coughing blood. “You don't get to leave me here to die.”
Vanessa shrieked, losing her balance. The derringer fired wildly into the air as she tumbled backward, crashing heavily onto the wooden planks. Her purse spilled open, the millions of dollars in bearer bonds scattering into the wind, fluttering down into the churning, black water of the lake.
“NO!” Vanessa screamed, watching her fortune wash away in the storm.
Luca stepped forward, his boots thudding heavily on the dock. He looked down at the ruined woman who had almost destroyed his world.
He didn't yell. He didn't raise a weapon.
He simply looked at Marco.
“She’s yours, Marco,” Luca said coldly. “Take her to hell with you.”
Luca turned his back on them, walking over to me. He gently took the crowbar from my shaking hands and wrapped his arm protectively around my shoulders.
“Are you alright, Claire?” Luca asked softly.
“I’m fine,” I breathed, shivering violently in the cold.
Luca led Nico and me away from the dock, back toward the parked sedan.
We didn't look back as the sound of a struggle and a final, muffled splash echoed from the end of the pier. Vanessa Bellini was gone.
We climbed into the sedan. The heat blasting from the vents felt like a miracle.
Luca sat in the driver’s seat, wiping the blood and rain from his face. He looked at Nico in the passenger seat, then at me in the back.
“The house is compromised,” Luca said, his voice steadying. “The Russian syndicate will know Dominic failed by morning. They will mobilize.”
“Then where do we go?” Nico asked, clutching the silver watch on his wrist.
Luca looked at his son, a faint, proud smile touching his lips.
“We aren't hiding, buddy,” Luca said. “We’re going to collect what’s left of the bonds from the water, and then we are going to buy a new army. The Russians wanted a war? They just got one.”
But as Luca reached to put the car in gear, his burner phone vibrated violently in his pocket.
He pulled it out, frowning at the unknown number on the screen. He answered it, putting it on speaker.
“Who is this?” Luca demanded.
A chilling, heavily accented voice echoed through the car.
“This is Viktor Volkov,” the voice said smoothly. “The head of the Russian syndicate.”
Luca’s jaw tightened. “Your boy Dominic is dead, Viktor. Your coup failed.”
“I am aware,” Viktor replied calmly. “Dominic was a fool. A blunt instrument. But he served his purpose.”
“What purpose?” Luca snarled.
“He provided a very loud distraction,” Viktor chuckled. “While you were busy fighting him at the lake... my elite team breached your secondary safe house.”
Luca froze. “I don't have anyone at the secondary safe house.”
“You don't,” Viktor agreed. “But your lovely housekeeper does.”
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My blood ran completely cold.
“I believe her sister, Emily, was a student at Northwestern University?” Viktor asked maliciously. “Such a bright girl. It’s a shame she’s currently sitting in the back of my van, tied to a chair.”
