Chapter 8 - The Traitor's Trap
Rico didn't panic. Panic was for men who lacked contingency plans.
Within ten minutes, Rico had mobilized his most trusted elite tactical unit via satellite link. He guided Clara and Leo into a deep, secondary panic room built fifty feet below the primary safehouse floor—a room with its own independent air supply that could withstand a nuclear blast.
"Stay here," Rico said, checking his weapons. "The gas won't reach this level. Dante is twenty minutes away with thirty men. He will secure the upper compound."
Clara grabbed his jacket lapels, pulling him down. "Rico, it's a trap! Valenti wants you at the docks alone!"
"He wants a execution, Clara," Rico said, a dark, lethal smile touching his lips. "What he’s going to get is a massacre."
"Daddy!" Leo ran over, grabbing Rico’s leg.
Rico dropped to one knee, pulling his son into his arms. He kissed Leo’s forehead, pressing his face into the boy's neck. "Be a brave little boss for Clara, okay? Daddy has to go clean up the city."
"Come back, Daddy," Leo said clearly, looking his father in the eyes. "We wait for you."
Rico’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. "I will always come back to you, Leo. I promise."
Rico stood up, gave Clara one last, passionate kiss that tasted of promise and gunpowder, and stepped out of the vault, locking the foot-thick steel door behind him.
An hour later, Rico’s solitary black sedan pulled into the abandoned container terminal at the Brooklyn Docks—the exact location where his wife had been killed six months prior. Rain poured from the dark sky, hammering against the rusted metal shipping containers.
Rico stepped out into the pouring rain, wearing his dark coat, carrying no visible weapons.
Standing forty yards away under the floodlights was Don Valenti—an older, cruel mobster with grey hair—surrounded by fifteen heavily armed mercenaries. Standing directly at Valenti’s right hand was Lorenzo, the Moretti capo.
"Rico!" Lorenzo sneered, wiping rain from his eyes. "You should have stayed in your mansion! You gave up everything for a waitress and a weak kid!"
"Lorenzo," Rico said smoothly, walking calmly forward through the puddle-strewn pavement, stopping twenty paces away. "I gave you Queens. I gave you fifteen percent of the docks. And you sold your family to a dying old dog."
"You went soft!" Lorenzo yelled passionately. "Ever since Elena died, you lost your edge! You were letting the family crumble because you couldn't control your brat!"
"My family is stronger than it has ever been," Rico said coldly.
Don Valenti stepped forward, pulling a gold-plated revolver. "Enough talk! Where is the location of the safehouse vault code, Moretti? Give it to me, and I'll kill your son quickly!"
Rico looked at his watch. 2:00 PM.
"You're late, Valenti," Rico said softly.
"What?" Valenti frowned.
Suddenly, the massive shipping containers surrounding the yard began to groan. Heavy hydraulic doors swung open on four massive cranes above them.
Dante and fifty Moretti tactical soldiers stepped into the light, weapons aimed down at Valenti’s men from every high-ground vantage point. Simultaneously, ten black SUVs crashed through the perimeter gates, blocking every exit.
Valenti gasped, looking around frantically. "How?! Lorenzo said you came alone!"
"Lorenzo is an idiot," Rico said coldly. "He didn't realize I planted a tracker in his watch three weeks ago when I suspected a leak. I knew about the safehouse threat before your gas canister was even armed. My men disarmed it thirty minutes ago."
Lorenzo’s face turned white as chalk. He pulled his pistol, aiming at Rico. "You bastard—"
BANG!
A single sniper round from the crane roof took Lorenzo through the shoulder, knocking him to his knees.
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Rico walked slowly forward, stepping over the puddle, pulling his custom nine-millimeter from his coat.
"This ends today, Valenti," Rico said, his voice cutting through the sound of the falling rain like a razor. "For Elena. For my son. And for my city."
