Chapter 10 - THE STANDOFF AT PIER 42
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The rain poured between the two rival factions like a shimmering curtain of liquid silver.
Anthony slowly raised his bruised, swollen face at the sound of Luca’s voice.
His bloodshot eyes strained against the glare, widening in sheer disbelief as he saw the men standing before him.
“Luca...?” Anthony rasped, his voice raw and choked with salt water and blood.
“Stay back, son! He’s got snipers on the crane towers!” Anthony screamed with all the strength left in his lungs.
Arthur Sterling casually drew a silver revolver from his coat and pressed the cold barrel against Anthony’s wet temple.
“Shut your mouth, old beggar,” Arthur hissed, digging the metal into Anthony’s bruised flesh.
Arthur turned his arrogant sneer back toward Luca, his eyes gleaming with greedy triumph.
“Toss the briefcase onto the dock, Luca, along with the signed deed of transfer from your father,” Arthur demanded.
“Do it now, or I paint this concrete with your uncle’s brains and kick him into the river.”
Luca didn't reach for the briefcase; instead, he stood with his hands loosely at his sides, utterly unfazed by the threat.
“You always were an amateur, Arthur,” Luca stated, his voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls.
“You think money and hired guns give you the right to challenge a family that built this city.”
“I don’t need your respect, boy, I need that land!” Arthur screamed, his composure finally cracking in the storm.
“Where is Frank? Did the cowardly old fool die in his armchair like I planned?”
The passenger door of the center SUV swung open slowly into the howling wind.
Frank Moretti stepped out onto the wet asphalt, leaning firmly on his mahogany cane with his chin held high.
Anthony gasped, a sound of profound, heart-shattering shock tearing through his throat.
“Frank...?” Anthony whispered, tears cutting clean tracks through the dried blood on his cheeks.
The two elderly brothers stared at each other across the twenty feet of concrete separating them.
Twenty years of manufactured hatred, stolen letters, and bitter loneliness melted away in that single, eternal glance.
“Anthony,” Frank called out, his voice strong and resonant, cutting straight through the roar of the gale.
“I read every single word you wrote to me, brother.”
Anthony broke down into uncontrollable weeping, his frail shoulders heaving against the coarse ropes binding him.
“I didn't sell it, Frank!” Anthony sobbed into the rain.
“I swear on our mother’s grave, I never betrayed you!”
“I know, Anthony,” Frank answered, taking another slow, deliberate step toward the dock.
“I am the one who needs to beg for your forgiveness, for believing a stranger over my own brother.”
Arthur Sterling’s eyes darted frantically between the two reunited brothers, realizing he was losing control of the psychological war.
“Enough of this pathetic garbage!” Arthur roared, cocking the hammer of the revolver against Anthony’s head.
“Drop the deed on the ground right now, Luca, or your uncle dies this second!”
Luca looked Arthur directly in the eye, raising his right hand into the air with two fingers extended.
“You should have looked up, Arthur,” Luca whispered coldly.
A red laser dot suddenly appeared in the exact center of Arthur Sterling’s forehead.
Then a second red dot appeared on his gun hand, followed by a third directly over his heart.
High above on the shipping crane, Luca’s elite counter-snipers had already neutralized Arthur’s men in complete silence.
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A single suppressed shot cracked through the night like a whip.
Arthur’s silver revolver exploded out of his hand in a shower of sparks and shattered metal, sending him screaming to his knees.
