Chapter 8 - The War for Manhattan
The wind howling through the open steel frame of Forty-Five Park Skyscraper sounded like the roars of dying monsters.
At fifty stories above the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan, the unfinished building was a nightmare of dark iron girders, exposed utility shafts, and dangling construction cables swaying in the sixty-mile-per-hour storm gales.
Lightning flashed across the night sky, illuminating the upper deck of the forty-eighth floor.
Standing near a temporary diesel generator, surrounded by twenty heavily armed enforcers, were Victor Moretti—a cruel, sharp-faced mob boss in a wet leather coat—and the traitor, Capo Carmine.
"The cops are blocking the lower avenues, Victor!" Carmine shouted over the thunder, his voice laced with frantic panic. "We need to get to the roof helipad now!"
"Shut up, Carmine!" Victor Moretti spat, wiping rain from his eyes as he held an assault rifle. "Romano doesn't know we're up here. As soon as the helicopter arrives, we fly to Connecticut, and—"
CLANG!
A heavy iron utility hatch near the elevator core blew open.
Through the rain and smoke, Matteo Romano burst onto the forty-eighth floor like an avenging demon, firing his automatic rifle with terrifying speed and lethal precision.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!
Four of Moretti’s guards dropped instantly into the puddle-strewn concrete deck.
Behind Matteo, Gabriel and a squad of twelve Romano tactical soldiers poured out of the service shaft, spreading out behind heavy concrete support pillars, opening fire on the rival syndicate.
A ferocious gunfight erupted across the open, rain-drenched floorboard. Sparks flew as bullets struck iron beams and shattered construction lights.
Elena crouched behind a reinforced elevator shaft pillar, her hard hat secured, holding an encrypted site tablet showing the live structural load of the floor.
She looked up at the ceiling above them.
Suspended forty feet above Victor Moretti’s primary firing position was a massive ten-ton steel counterweight crane rig, held in place by a temporary hydraulic locking pin that had been rusted by three years of exposure to the salt rain.
"Matteo!" Elena screamed over the roar of gunfire and thunder. "The crane rig above their heads! The hydraulic pin on column four is corroded! If you shoot the secondary hydraulic valve, the counterweight will drop and shear the main support girder!"
Matteo turned his head, his dark eyes instantly spotting the yellow hydraulic valve highlighted by Elena’s spotlight beam.
"Gabriel! Cover me!" Matteo shouted.
Matteo broke cover, sprinting across the open slick concrete under a hail of enemy fire. He slid across the rain-soaked floor, came up on one knee, aimed his rifle upward, and dumped an entire magazine directly into the rusted hydraulic valve.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-BOOM!
The hydraulic fluid sprayed into the storm air in a pressurized burst.
With a deafening roar of twisting metal, the ten-ton steel counterweight snapped its rusted pin and plummeted forty feet, smashing directly through the central floor girder where Moretti’s main squad was pinned down.
The structural impact fractured the open deck. The entire eastern floor section tilted at a twenty-degree angle under the sudden shift of weight.
Moretti’s men screamed as weapons, diesel generators, and tactical gear slid off the edge of the building, plunging forty-eight stories into the dark abyss below.
Victor Moretti managed to grab an iron support cable, dangling precariously over the thousand-foot drop.
Carmine, panicked and bleeding from a shrapnel wound, scrambled up the slick concrete ramp toward the emergency exit stairs.
Elena saw him. "Matteo! Carmine is escaping toward the roof!"
Matteo turned, his face covered in rain and gunpowder soot. He bounded up the wet incline, catching Carmine near the edge of the open stairwell.
Matteo grabbed the traitor by his collar, spinning him around and slamming him viciously against an iron girder overhanging the city skyline.
Carmine choked, staring into the silver-dark eyes of the Don he had betrayed.
"Matteo... please..." Carmine begged, his hands clawing at Matteo’s iron grip. "We were family... your father—"
"My father trusted you," Matteo hissed, his voice cold enough to freeze the rain around them. "And you tried to murder my mother and the woman I love."
Without another word, Matteo drove a heavy fist into Carmine’s jaw, knocking the traitor out cold, before dumping him onto the concrete floor where Gabriel instantly cuffed him.
Across the deck, Victor Moretti was hauled up over the ledge by two Romano soldiers and thrown at Matteo’s boots, completely defeated, his empire shattered in a single storm-drenched hour.
The gunfight was over.
The storm began to subside, the heavy rain turning into a gentle, misting drizzle over Manhattan.
Matteo discarded his empty rifle, turning around to search the smoke-filled floor.
"Elena!" he called out, his voice desperate.
Elena stepped out from behind the elevator pillar, taking off her fogged safety goggles, her dark hair wet, her clothes soaked, but her hazel eyes shining with absolute love and triumph.
Matteo covered the distance between them in three massive strides, pulling her up into his arms and swinging her around on the high, open floor overlooking the glittering lights of New York City.
He buried his face in her neck, breathing in her scent, holding her as if she were the only real thing in a world made of dust and glass.
May you like
"We did it," Elena whispered, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, kissing his rain-splattered cheek. "It's over, Matteo."
"No," Matteo murmured, leaning down to capture her lips in a deep, passionate, victorious kiss high above the sleeping city. "It’s just beginning."
