Chapter 6 - The Storm Unleashed
Grace was staring at him, her hands trembling against her apron, her face pale.
She had seen Vincent as a generous billionaire, a soft-spoken benefactor, and a gentle protector. She had forgotten—or chosen to ignore—who he truly was. He was Vincent Moretti. The man whose name had made grown men speak in whispers for twenty years.
“Grace...” Vincent said, taking a step toward her, his voice softening instantly. “I am sorry you had to see that.”
Grace looked at him, then at Noah, who was peeking out from behind the flour sacks, wide-eyed.
“Is... is he going to hurt us, Vincent?” Grace asked, her voice cracking with fear.
Vincent walked over to her. He did not touch her, respecting her boundary, but his presence was a wall of solid iron.
“No one is going to hurt you, Grace,” Vincent promised, his voice filled with absolute conviction. “I give you my word on my mother’s grave.”
Two days passed.
Vincent reinforced the bakery’s security, placing four of his best plainclothes operatives around the perimeter of 5th Street twenty-four hours a day.
On Thursday afternoon, a sudden blinding autumn rainstorm hammered down over Boston.
Grace was in the back kitchen pulling fresh batches of sourdough loaves from the commercial ovens. The clock read four thirty. Noah’s school bus had dropped him off twenty minutes earlier, and he was supposed to be playing in the secure courtyard behind the bakery.
“Noah!” Grace called out over the hum of the ventilation fans. “Sweetheart, come wash your hands for snack time!”
No answer.
Grace wiped her hands on her apron and walked out into the courtyard.
The rain was pouring from the rain gutters. The rear gate—usually locked with a heavy brass deadbolt—was swinging open in the wind, its latch severed by industrial bolt cutters.
On the wet cobblestones lay Noah’s red school backpack.
Beside it was a rain-soaked piece of cardboard with five words scrawled in thick black marker:
TERMINAL 3 OR THE BOY.
Grace let out an ear-splitting, blood-curdling scream that echoed down the alleyway.
Thirty seconds later, inside the penthouse executive suite of the Moretti Grand Hotel, Vincent’s phone rang.
He answered on the first ring.
“Vincent!” Grace’s voice was hysterical, choked with ragged, frantic sobs. “They took him! Oh God, Vincent! They took Noah! The gate was cut! They took my baby!”
THUD.
Vincent stood up so fast his heavy leather executive chair crashed backward against the floor-to-ceiling glass window.
The calm, legitimate hotel magnate vanished in a fraction of a second. The lion of South Boston awoke with a vengeance that shook the very foundations of the building.
“Daniel!” Vincent roared into the intercom speaker.
Daniel burst through the double doors three seconds later.
“Boss?”
“Call Marcus, Geno, and the dock boys,” Vincent ordered, his voice dropping into a lethal, terrifying tone that Daniel hadn't heard in fifteen years. “Shut down every harbor exit. Block the Tobin Bridge. Close every warehouse O’Leary owns in South Boston.”
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“Mr. Moretti... the police—”
“No police!” Vincent growled, pulling a heavy black handgun from a hidden vault behind his desk. “O’Leary wants a war. I’m going to give him an execution.”
