Chapter 8 - Shadows over Philadelphia
While we reclaimed control of the Camden docks, the remnants of Grant Mercer’s network were not going down without a fight.
Grant had been locked in the subterranean holding rooms beneath Vale House, but his connections ran deep into the Philadelphia underworld. The Moretti family in Detroit, deprived of their inside informant, realized that Adrian was systematically dismantling their foothold in Pennsylvania.
Two weeks after the incident at the docks, an emergency meeting of the regional council was called at an old, secure estate in Chestnut Hill.
The council was comprised of five major families who managed the city’s underground logistics, real estate, and political bribes. Officially, it was a neutral sit-down to resolve territory disputes. Unofficially, it was a trap set by Moretti’s allies to test whether Adrian had grown soft after elevating a former housemaid to his side.
I sat beside Adrian at the long, polished mahogany table in the center of the windowless room.
Across from us sat Don Sal Moretti—an elderly, eagle-nosed man with cold, watery eyes—and three other syndicate heads from South Philly and Jersey. Around the perimeter of the room stood twenty armed guards, their tension palpable in the close, airless space.
"Adrian," Sal Moretti began, his voice raspy from decades of cigar smoke. "We hear strange things from Camden. We hear you put a girl with no bloodline in charge of the primary terminal. We hear you locked up your own cousin."
"My cousin was a thief, Sal," Adrian said calmly, pouring himself a glass of mineral water. "And my wife owns the land you operate on."
Sal sneered, leaning forward, resting his liver-spotted hands on the table. "Wife? You marry a servant, Adrian, and expect the council to respect your authority? You think a girl who used to sweep floors can sit at a table where blood has been spilled for fifty years?"
The other bosses chuckled darkly.
I didn't flinch. I sat straight, my hands rested calmly on the leather folder before me.
"Don Moretti," I spoke up, my voice calm, clear, and ringing with absolute authority.
Sal’s eyes snapped to me, his brow furrowing in irritation. "Speak when you're spoken to, girl."
"I hold the titles to the rail lines connecting your distribution warehouses in King of Prussia to the main port," I said, opening my folder and sliding three yellowed parchment documents across the table toward him. "These are original land grants issued in 1954, secured by Giovanni Vale. They give the owner of Pier 42 exclusive rights to terminate rail access in the event of an unapproved territorial expansion."
Sal didn't touch the papers. "What is this nonsense?"
"It means," I said, leaning forward until I was looking directly into his cold, watery eyes, "that while you were busy worrying about my bloodline, I signed an order two hours ago shutting down your rail access in King of Prussia. Your trucks are currently backed up six miles on Highway 76, losing roughly two hundred thousand dollars an hour."
Sal’s face went completely pale. He reached frantically for his phone, punching in a number, his hands trembling slightly. After a brief, panicked conversation in Italian, he dropped the phone onto the table, staring at me as if I had just struck him with lightning.
"You..." Sal stammered.
May you like
"I know how the machinery works, Don Moretti," I said softly, my voice dropping into that chilling, quiet register I had learned from Adrian. "Because I’m the one who cleaned the gears while you were busy admiring the crown."
Adrian didn't say a word. He simply sat back in his chair, a cold, triumphant smile playing on his lips as he looked at the terrified mafia boss sitting across from us.
