Chapter 9 - The Salt on Whiskey Island
Midnight fell over Cleveland like a heavy black shroud.
The salt docks on Whiskey Island were a desolate, industrial graveyard where towering mountains of road salt sat beside the black, sluggish waters of the Cuyahoga River. A bitter, freezing rain fell from the sky, turning the gravel into a slick slurry of mud and brine.
Salvatore Moretti stood beneath the halogen floodlights of an abandoned storage warehouse, flanked by eight of his remaining lieutenants. Sal was sixty-two, heavy-set, wearing a dripping trench coat, his face pulled tight with nervous, predatory energy. He had called the emergency meeting, but deep down, in the pit of his gut, he knew the hit at Edgewater Park had failed catastrophically.
Headlights cut through the rainy darkness.
A single black Cadillac Escalade crested the gravel ridge, rolling slowly toward the warehouse, its tires crunching heavily over the wet stones.
It stopped thirty yards away.
The engine was shut off. The headlights died, plunging the docks back into the sickly yellow glow of the floodlights.
The driver’s side door opened.
Dominic Vale stepped out alone.
He wore his long charcoal wool coat, buttoned to the throat, no umbrella, no hat. He didn't carry a weapon in his hands. His hands were thrust casually into his coat pockets as he walked through the freezing rain with the calm, measured stride of an executioner arriving at the gallows.
Sal Moretti scoffed, trying to mask his terror with bravado. He spread his arms wide, looking at his armed men.
“Look at this!” Moretti shouted, his voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls. “The great Dominic Vale comes to sue for peace! Did your little baker woman pack you a lunch, Dominic? Did she bake you some cookies for the ride?”
His men chuckled nervously, their hands hovering near their waistbands.
Dominic didn't stop until he was ten feet from Moretti. His dark eyes were dead, devoid of anger, devoid of humanity.
“You broke the rule, Sal,” Dominic said quietly. His voice cut through the wind and rain like a steel blade. “We fight over docks. We fight over shipments. We fight over money. We do not touch families. We do not touch children.”
Moretti sneered, stepping forward, his fat face twisting into an ugly mask. “She’s not your family, Dominic! She’s a fat little pastry chef who got stuck with her junkie sister’s kid! And that kid’s mother owes me thirty grand! You think you can build an empire and then retire to play house with some bakery girl? You’re getting soft, Vale. You’re weak.”
Dominic tilted his head slightly. A ghost of a smile touched his lips—a smile so chilling, so utterly devoid of warmth, that Moretti’s smile instantly vanished.
“Soft?” Dominic murmured. “No, Sal. When a man has nothing to lose, he fights to survive. But when a man has a family to protect… he fights to exterminate.”
Dominic pulled his hands from his pockets.
He didn't draw a gun. He held up a small, black radio transmitter and pressed a single red button.
Behind Moretti, high up on the metal catwalks of the salt warehouse, floodlights—blinding, stadium-grade halogens—suddenly snapped on with a deafening hum, drowning the entire area in searing white light.
From the shadows, twenty of Dominic’s elite soldiers stepped into view, armed with suppressed assault rifles, laser sights painting vivid red dots across the chests and foreheads of every single one of Moretti’s men.
Raymond stepped out from behind a salt mound, racking the slide of a combat shotgun with a crisp, terrifying snap.
Moretti’s lieutenants froze, their eyes wide with horror. Not a single one dared to reach for a weapon.
“Sal,” Dominic said softly, stepping closer until he towered over the shaking old mobster. “Your nephew who ran Marcus? He’s currently at the bottom of Lake Erie. Your drug warehouses in Parma? Burned to the ground twenty minutes ago. Your accounts in the Caymans? Frozen by my federal contacts. You don't have an empire anymore, Sal. You have thirty seconds to leave this state and never set foot in Ohio again.”
Moretti fell to his knees in the freezing mud, his trench coat soaking up the brine, his hands raised in pathetic surrender. “Dominic… please. We go back thirty years. Your father—”
“My father is dead,” Dominic cut him off with icy finality. “And you tried to murder the woman I love and the child under my roof. If you are still in this county by sunrise, Sal, they won't even find your bones.”
Dominic turned his back on the kneeling boss, walking back toward his SUV without looking back.
“Raymond,” Dominic called out over his shoulder.
“Boss?”
“Clean this trash off my docks.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dominic climbed into the warm interior of the Escalade. He closed the heavy door, shutting out the wind, the rain, and the pathetic whimpering of Sal Moretti.
He sat back against the leather seat and looked at his watch.
One forty-five in the morning.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. There was a single text message waiting for him, sent twenty minutes ago from Claire:
*The fire is still burning. We’re waiting for you.*
Dominic stared at the screen, a deep, overwhelming peace settling into his chest. He tapped the glass, brought the phone to his lips, and whispered:
May you like
“Drive, Raymond. Take me home.”
***
