Chapter 16
The South Side freight rail yard was a sprawling, desolate wasteland of rusted steel tracks, towering floodlight towers, and hundreds of stacked commercial shipping containers stretching along the industrial corridor of the city. A freezing, relentless sleet had begun to fall, slicking the gravel and turning the dirt pathways into freezing mud. The cold wind howled through the gaps between the metal containers, masking the low, synchronized rumble of four black tactical vans entering the perimeter through an abandoned service gate.
Dominic Moretti sat in the passenger seat of the lead tactical van, his suppressed carbine resting across his knees. He wore an insulated black tactical jacket with the collar turned up against the cold, his dark hair dampened by the mist, his sharp jaw set in stone. Through his tactical earpiece, the rhythmic reports of his scout snipers echoed with crisp, military discipline.
"Alpha One in position atop the grain silo," a sniper reported. "Thermal optics show eight armed hostiles patrolling the central loading platform. They are carrying automatic weapons. We have visual confirmation of Salvatore Rossi’s armored Maybach parked beside decommissioned refrigerated container 408."
"Bravo One in position at the southern rail junction," another voice crackled. "Perimeter sentries have been neutralized silently with tranquilizers. The yard is isolated."
"Hold your fire until my signal," Dominic commanded, his voice a low, steady frequency. "The primary objective is the extraction of Daniel Evans. Do not allow them to breach container 408."
Inside the rail yard, standing beside the rusted doors of container 408, was Salvatore Rossi. In his late fifties, the veteran capo was thick-set and heavily jowled, dressed in an expensive camel-hair coat that looked entirely out of place amidst the grime of the rail yard. He puffed frantically on an expensive cigar, his face flushed red with anxiety and alcohol. Beside him stood four of his most trusted personal enforcers, all armed with short-barreled shotguns.
"Where the hell is Marcus?!" Sal barked furiously, checking his diamond-encrusted watch. "He was supposed to bring the girl and the drive back three hours ago!"
"His phone is dead, Sal," one of the enforcers replied nervously. "We checked his apartment. The door was kicked off, and his car is gone. Something went wrong."
"Damn that incompetent idiot!" Sal cursed, tossing his cigar onto the wet gravel and grinding it beneath his leather shoe. "If Dominic’s internal security caught wind of Marcus, we’re finished! Forget the password! Open that damn container right now! We put a bullet through Evans’s head, torch the container, and head straight to the private airstrip in Gary! The Detroit boys will shelter us until the dust settles!"
One of the enforcers grabbed a heavy crowbar and moved toward the heavy padlock securing the container doors.
"Sniper, take the lock," Dominic’s voice whispered over the comms.
CRACK.
A high-velocity, suppressed sniper round ripped through the sleet from five hundred yards away. The heavy steel padlock shattered into fragments of sparking metal, the impact tearing the crowbar violently out of the enforcer's hands.
Before Sal or his men could even process the sound, the rail yard’s massive industrial floodlights were instantly severed, plunging the entire sector into absolute, suffocating darkness.
A split second later, three high-intensity flashbang grenades detonated simultaneously around the loading platform with a blinding, concussive roar.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The night erupted into pure, synchronized chaos.
"AMBUSH!" Sal screamed, clutching his ears in agony as white spots blinded his vision. "SHOOT! SHOOT EVERYONE!"
His enforcers opened fire blindly into the dark, muzzle flashes illuminating the swirling sleet in violent, jagged bursts. But they were shooting at ghosts.
Dominic Moretti and his Alpha strike team moved through the shipping container alleys like phantoms of death. Dominic emerged from the shadows of an overturned railcar, his suppressed carbine barking with surgical precision. Three controlled bursts dropped the two enforcers flanking Sal’s Maybach before they could even align their shotgun barrels.
Vance and three tactical operators swept around the northern flank, their weapons coughing in a relentless, synchronized rhythm. In less than forty-five seconds, all eight of Sal’s armed mercenaries were neutralized, their bodies collapsing into the wet gravel.
Sal scrambled backward in absolute terror, his expensive camel-hair coat soaked in freezing mud. He pulled a chrome revolver from his waistband, his hands shaking so violently he could barely cock the hammer. He aimed blindly toward the clearing smoke.
A massive, leather-gloved hand clamped around the cylinder of the revolver like an iron vice.
Sal looked up, his jaw dropping in sheer, paralyzing horror.
Dominic Moretti stood over him, towering like a vengeful god of the underworld. The billionaire’s face was an unreadable mask of absolute, lethal authority, his gray-blue eyes burning through the shadows. With a single, effortless twist of his muscular wrist, Dominic stripped the revolver from Sal’s grip, fracturing the older man’s trigger finger with a sickening snap.
Sal cried out, collapsing onto his knees in the mud. "Dominic! Dominic, please! It’s a mistake! Let me explain!"
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Dominic didn't say a word. He reversed the heavy chrome revolver in his hand and drove the steel grip brutally across Sal’s jaw. The impact sent the corrupt capo crashing onto his side, spitting blood and broken teeth onto the gravel.
Dominic stepped over the groaning traitor and walked directly to the doors of container 408. He grabbed the heavy steel latch and pulled the doors wide open.
