Chapter 8 - the port raid
Victor didn't turn on the television. He walked to the wide bay window of his study and looked east toward the bay. In the distance, through the heavy rain, flashing blue and red emergency lights painted the low clouds over the shipping terminals.
"You played your final card too early, Celeste," Victor said into the receiver.
"Did I?" Celeste replied with a soft, venomous chuckle. "The port expansion contract had a morality clause, Victor. If you're indicted by a federal grand jury for corporate fraud and falsifying death records, the entire shipping terminal defaults to the next largest shareholder."
"Your father's holding firm," Victor said coldly.
"Exactly. By dawn, you won't have enough cash flow to pay your perimeter guards. And a mafia boss without money is just a target in an expensive suit."
Victor hung up the phone without another word.
He turned to Adriana. "Stay in this room. Keep the pistol on the desk. If anyone tries to enter who isn't me or Luca, shoot them."
"Victor, where are you going?" she asked, rising from the sofa.
"To see the man who sold us out."
Victor walked out of the study, through the dimly lit corridors, and took the private elevator down to the mansion's subterranean motor pool. Luca was already waiting by the armored SUV, his assault rifle slung across his chest.
"Boss, the docks are crawling with feds," Luca said. "Agent Miller from the Organized Crime Division is leading the raid himself. We can't get near the warehouses."
"We're not going to the docks," Victor said, climbing into the passenger seat. "We're going to Don Falcone’s estate."
Don Falcone was seventy-two years old, the oldest living member of the Five Families Commission, and the man who had formally approved Victor’s ascension to Boss five years ago after Salvatore’s funeral.
Thirty minutes later, Victor's SUV smashed directly through the wrought-iron security gate of Falcone’s gated manor in the hills. The tires screeched across the wet cobblestone driveway, stopping inches from the front doors.
Two of Falcone’s guards ran out with their weapons drawn, but Victor stepped out of the vehicle with such terrifying authority that both men hesitated.
"Drop them," Victor growled, walking straight toward them. "Or I'll have Luca paint this courtyard with your blood before you can cock the hammers."
The guards looked at Victor's towering frame, saw the cold, unyielding rage in his dark eyes, and lowered their barrels.
Victor kicked the grand double doors open and strode into the marble foyer.
Don Falcone was sitting in the parlor in a silk bathrobe, sipping brandy, looking remarkably unbothered by the violent entrance.
"You always lacked your father’s patience, Victor," Falcone said smoothly, setting his snifter down.
Victor walked across the room, grabbed Falcone by the silk lapels of his robe, and hauled the old man out of his armchair.
"Who leaked the clinic records to the feds, Falcone?" Victor asked, his voice low and vibrating with menace.
May you like
Falcone smiled through yellowed teeth. "You're asking the wrong question, boy. You should be asking who gave Celeste the authority to sign your mother's trust."
***
