Chapter 8 - THE HARBOR SHADOWS
The cold salt air of Long Island Sound blew through the narrow opening of the boat house.
Rain was still pouring down in sheets, creating thick ripples across the dark ocean water. A thirty-foot black speed boat sat moored inside the wooden slip, its twin engines idling with a low, deep rumble.
Nico helped his father down the wooden ladder into the boat cabin, while Elena secured Margaret in the passenger seat.
"Nico," Vittorio caught his son's arm as Nico prepared to step back onto the dock. "Where are you going?"
"Carlo's offshore accounts are managed through a private server facility at the Manhattan docks," Nico said, adjusting his shoulder holster. "If I don't destroy those ledgers tonight, his backers on the Commission will continue hunting you and Mom forever."
"Nico, no!" Margaret cried out from the cabin. "It's a trap! The Commission will have fifty men at the docks!"
"Then they'll need fifty more," Nico said smoothly.
He turned to Elena. "Take them to the safehouse in Montauk. If I'm not there by sunrise, activate Protocol Omega and release the entire Vanguard file to the federal prosecutors."
"Nico, wait—" Vittorio reached for him, but Nico hit the hydraulic release button on the dock wall.
The heavy wooden doors of the boat house slid open, and Elena pushed the throttles forward, sending the speed boat surging out into the dark, stormy bay, leaving Nico alone on the pier.
Nico turned around, pulling a fresh submachine gun from a storage crate near the door.
Standing at the end of the wooden dock, soaked in rainwater, was a man in an expensive grey suit, holding an umbrella.
It was Don Carmine Moretti—the current head of the Moretti syndicate and Sofia Moretti's eldest son.
Two armed guards stood beside him, their weapons pointed at the ground.
"Nico," Carmine said, his voice smooth and cultured over the sound of the falling rain.
"Carmine," Nico replied, holding his gun steady. "Did you come to finish Carlo's job?"
Carmine sighed softly, stepping forward. "Carlo was an idiot, Nico. He thought my mother was working with him. He didn't realize that my mother loved your father."
Nico paused, his brow furrowing. "What?"
Carmine pulled a thick leather folder from his coat, holding it out under his umbrella. "Sofia didn't help your father hide to steal your money, Nico. She helped him hide because forty years ago, before your father married Margaret... Sofia was in love with him."
Carmine smiled faintly. "When Carlo tried to kill Vittorio eleven years ago, my mother saved his life. She kept him hidden in Switzerland because she knew it was the only way to keep your family alive."
Carmine tossed the leather folder onto a wooden crate beside Nico. "That folder contains the encryption keys to every account Carlo tried to steal tonight. My mother sent me here to give them to you."
May you like
Nico looked down at the folder, then back at Carmine. "Why?"
"Because," Carmine said, turning back toward his car parked on the gravel road, "your mother kept her promise for eleven years. My family respects a woman who knows the value of a vow."
