Chapter 6 - THE TRAITOR’S CROWN
The alleyway was suddenly illuminated by blinding white floodlights mounted on four heavy trucks that swung around the corners, blocking both ends of the street.
A dozen men stepped into the light, their automatic rifles pointed directly at my SUV.
At the head of the group stood Victor.
He had taken off his glasses. He was holding a glass of scotch in one hand and a silver pistol in the other. Beside him stood Cassian Vance—the rival mob boss who was supposed to be at Pier 14.
My breath hitched in my throat. My grip on Sofia tightened as I pulled her behind my back on the leather seat.
"Victor..." I whispered, my voice dripping with disbelief. "What is this?"
"It’s called an evolution, my boy," Victor said calmly, taking a slow sip of his scotch. "Your father was a great man, but he was stuck in the old ways. And you... you became soft the moment you fell in love with that girl."
"You..." I growled, my jaw clenching so hard my teeth hurt. "You gave Vance the bug. You told him to kidnap Sofia."
"Of course I did!" Victor laughed—a dry, soulless sound that filled the alleyway. "Cassian didn't have the brains to scheme a plot like this. I needed a way to break you from the inside, Aleandro. I knew if I used Isabella, you would lose your mind. You would focus so entirely on her betrayal that you wouldn't see me stripping your empire out from under you!"
Cassian Vance stepped forward, a smug grin plastered across his scarred face. "The team at Pier 14 was a nice touch, Moretti. Too bad Victor alerted me thirty minutes ago that it was a trap. While your men were waiting for an ambush at the docks, my men took over your central headquarters in Manhattan."
"You sold out my family," I spat out, my eyes burning with absolute, deadly rage as I stared at the man who had helped raise me. "My father treated you like a brother!"
"Your father kept me in second place for thirty years!" Victor screamed, his calm facade finally cracking, revealing the bitter, venomous monster underneath. "I earned half of that empire! And when he died, he handed the crown to a twenty-five-year-old boy instead of me!"
Victor raised his silver pistol, pointing it straight at my head through the open car door.
"Hand the little girl over, Aleandro," Victor ordered coldly. "And maybe I’ll let you die with a bullet to the heart instead of drowning in the East River."
I looked down at Sofia. The child was hyperventilating, hiding her small face against my side.
I looked back at Victor. A slow, terrifying smile spread across my face.
"You always were impatient, Victor," I said softly. "You were so eager to play the mastermind that you forgot one very important thing."
Victor’s brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"I never go into an ambush without a secondary plan," I murmured.
I reached into my pocket and pressed a small red button on my key fob.
BOOM!
The building behind Victor exploded into a wall of orange fire as four flashbang grenades detonated simultaneously from the upper windows.
The blinding light and deafening roar sent Vance’s men stumbling backward, clutching their ears and eyes in temporary blindness.
"MOVE!" I roared.
From the rooftops above the alley, fifteen of my elite personal vanguard—men who answered only to the Moretti bloodline—dropped down on steel cables like dark angels of death.
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Gunfire ripped through the alleyway in an absolute storm.
I slammed the heavy armored SUV door shut, locking Sofia inside the reinforced steel cabin, pulled two pistols from my belt, and stepped out into the firefight.
