Chapter 8 - The Gathering Storm
Inside the Greenpoint warehouse, the air was thick with the smell of spilled whiskey, gunpowder, and palpable, suffocating dread.
Vincent Romano backed away from the table until his legs hit the wooden crates, his chest heaving, his eyes darting frantically toward the doors where Marcus and Anthony stood blocking escape.
“Boys!” Vincent shouted, forcing a desperate, manic smile as he looked at the regional captains. “Don't listen to him! He’s playing games! Look at him, he’s wounded—he’s weak!”
“I’m standing right here, Vincent,” Lorenzo said, stopping ten feet away from his former adviser. He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't need to. The sheer, crushing aura of his presence was enough to make grown men step back. “For eleven years, I gave you my trust. I gave you my books, my confidence, my right hand. And you decided that my chair was more comfortable than your own.”
“You were getting soft, Lorenzo!” Vincent snapped, his mask of calm completely shattering into shrieking paranoia. “You let sentimentality cloud the business! You kept strays like that maid and her brat in the mansion! You forgot what made the DeLuca family feared in this city!”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed into slits of pure ice.
“No, Vincent,” Lorenzo whispered, his voice dropping an octave so that every man in the warehouse strained to hear. “I never forgot. You’re the one who forgot whose name is on the ledger.”
He turned his gaze toward Frank Moretti and Sal Maroni.
“The meeting is over,” Lorenzo announced, sweeping his gaze across the room. “Anyone who stood with Vincent tonight has until sunrise to clear their accounts and hand over their badges. Anyone who stays will share his fate.”
Before Vincent could lunge for the small nickel-plated pistol hidden inside his coat, Anthony Graves closed the distance with terrifying speed. With a single brutal blow to the solar plexus, Anthony lifted Vincent off his feet and slammed him face-first onto the wooden shipping crate, twisting his arm behind his back until a sickening pop echoed through the hall.
May you like
Vincent screamed, thrashing against the wood.
“Tie him up,” Lorenzo ordered coldly, turning his back on his former friend. “Put him in the same chair in the same cellar. Let’s see how much he likes the dark.”
