Chapter 6 - The Trap is Set
Midnight approached like a shroud over the Chicago waterfront.
Pier 42 was a decaying relic of the city’s industrial past—a vast, cavernous concrete dock jutting out into the black, freezing waters of Lake Michigan. Towering rusting cranes stood against the stormy night sky like skeleton sentinels, while the massive waves crashed violently against the wooden pilings beneath the pier.
A fleet of three black sedans pulled into the dark interior of the pier’s main warehouse, their headlights cutting through the thick fog and swirling rain.
The doors opened, and Dominic Moretti stepped out, flanked by six armed men in heavy leather coats.
Moments later, a silver Mercedes pulled up beside them. Evan Cross stepped out of the driver's side, wearing his tailored coat, his face pale and tight under the harsh yellow halogen lights mounted high on the warehouse rafters.
“Is he here yet?” Moretti growled, stepping up to Evan.
“His car just crossed the perimeter gate,” Evan said, his voice laced with nervous edge. “Remember the plan, Dominic. We don't kill him unless he refuses to sign the transfer deeds. If Gabriel dies without signing, the state freezes the corporate assets for months.”
“Relax, Evan,” Moretti sneered, patting the heavy bulge beneath his coat. “Your former boss is a smart man. When he sees he’s completely surrounded, he’ll sign whatever we put in front of him. Then he can have a nice, quiet retirement at the bottom of the lake.”
A single black SUV drove slowly into the warehouse, its tires grinding against the wet gravel and broken concrete floor.
The engine cut off. The headlights remained on, blinding Moretti’s men with two piercing beams of white light.
The driver’s door opened, and Viktor stepped out, holding an umbrella. He walked around to the rear door and opened it.
Gabriel Rowan stepped out into the cold night air.
He wore no body armor, no visible weapons. Just his black overcoat, a sharp charcoal suit, and a dark silk tie. In his right hand, he carried a slim leather briefcase.
He walked calmly toward the center of the warehouse, stopping twenty feet from Evan and Moretti. Viktor took a position five paces behind him, his hands folded neutrally in front of his waist.
“You chose a dismal place for a business meeting, Gabriel,” Moretti called out, his voice echoing off the corrugated steel walls.
Gabriel ignored the old mobster entirely. His eyes were fixed on Evan.
“Fourteen years, Evan,” Gabriel said softly. His voice was steady, carrying effortlessly over the sound of the storm outside. “I thought we were brothers.”
Evan flinched slightly, but he quickly straightened his back, a bitter, defensive sneer twisting his lips.
“Brothers?” Evan laughed—a dry, hollow sound. “You were the saint, Gabriel! The great Gabriel Rowan! The visionary who went clean! Everyone looked at you like you were a god! And who built the foundation? Who did the dirty work in the dark so you could wear three-thousand-dollar suits and smile for the newspapers? ME!”
“I offered you half the company three years ago, Evan,” Gabriel reminded him quietly. “You refused.”
“Because I didn't want your scraps!” Evan shouted, his composure finally breaking into raw, festering rage. “I didn't want twenty percent of a legal freight company! I wanted what was mine! I earned this empire! Salvatore was too soft to take the city, and you were too weak to keep it without me!”
A cold smile touched Gabriel’s lips—a smile so chilling that Moretti’s armed men instinctively took a half-step back.
“So you killed Salvatore,” Gabriel said.
Evan went dead silent. The rain slamming against the roof seemed to grow deafening.
“You disabled the fire suppression system at the South Side warehouse,” Gabriel continued, taking one step forward. “You sold out our southern lines to Moretti. And today, you sent a terrified maintenance man to steal my master vault keys.”
“It doesn't matter what I did,” Evan spat, pulling a heavy silver revolver from his coat and aiming it directly at Gabriel’s chest. “It’s over, Gabriel. Look around you! You brought one man! I have Moretti’s entire vanguard! The port authority has already received the forged emergency transfer documents! By tomorrow morning, Rowan Freight belongs to us!”
Gabriel looked at the gun pointed at his heart. Then he looked at Moretti.
“Dominic,” Gabriel said calmly. “Did Evan tell you what was actually inside the black envelope?”
Moretti frowned, looking sideways at Evan. “The voting proxy deeds.”
“No,” Gabriel said. He opened the briefcase in his hand and pulled out a thick stack of legal documents stamped with the official seal of the United States District Court.
“It contained the complete forensic audit of the Panama shell accounts,” Gabriel explained smoothly. “Including the wired transfers that Evan used to pay off federal prosecutors in your RICO trial three years ago.”
Moretti’s face drained of all color. “What... what did you say?”
“Evan didn't just steal from me, Dominic,” Gabriel murmured. “He skimmed sixty million dollars from your family’s private accounts over the last four years to fund his private bank in Zurich. He played us both.”
Moretti’s head snapped toward Evan, his eyes burning with sudden, catastrophic rage. “Is this true, you bastard?!”
“He’s lying!” Evan screamed, his hand trembling on the revolver. “He’s trying to turn us against each other! Shoot him! Shoot him now!”
Before Moretti could give the order, a blinding flare of red spotlighting suddenly flooded the warehouse from every high window and overhead rafter.
Heavy iron doors slammed shut around the perimeter of the pier with deafening crashes.
From the shadows of the catwalks forty feet above, thirty heavily armed tactical operators in unmarked black gear materialized, their laser sights painting small, deadly crimson dots across the chests of every one of Moretti’s men.
May you like
A heavy voice echoed through a tactical megaphone from the upper deck.
“FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION! DROP YOUR WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY!”
