Chapter 7 - The Abattoir on Pier 14
The rain had washed the salt off the highway, turning Route 9 into a dark ribbon of asphalt running through the industrial wastelands of the northern docks.
Maeve drove with both hands locked onto the leather steering wheel of the heavy black Suburban, her knuckles white, her foot pressing the pedal until the V8 engine screamed against the governor. In the passenger seat, Gabriel was methodically loading drum magazines for a pair of tactical shotguns, his fingers moving with rhythmic, surgical speed.
In the rear, Declan lay across the leather bench, clutching a fresh bottle of bourbon against his taped ribs, his breathing shallow but steady.
"Pier 14 is an abandoned fish processing plant," Gabriel said, not looking up from his work. "Vincenzo bought it two years ago through a shell company. It has reinforced concrete walls, three deep-water slips, and only one road in. If he has Roman inside, he’ll have snipers on the catwalks and two teams on the floor."
"How many men does Vincenzo have total?" Maeve asked, glancing at the GPS display on the console. Three miles out.
"Forty," Gabriel said flatly. "Maybe fifty. He brought his entire Brooklyn crew across the river for this."
"And how many do we have?"
"You," Gabriel said, looking at her with a faint, wicked smirk, "me, and half of Declan."
"Good," Maeve said, downshifting as the industrial cranes of the shipyard loomed out of the fog like the skeletons of prehistoric beasts. "Fewer people to get in the way."
She didn't slow down as they approached the perimeter gate of Pier 14.
The entrance was blocked by a heavy chain-link barrier topped with concertina wire and a rusted guard shack illuminated by a single sodium floodlight. A guard stepped out, raising an automatic rifle, shouting into his radio.
"Hold on to something," Maeve muttered.
She slammed the accelerator to the floorboards.
The three-ton armored truck hit the gate at sixty miles an hour.
The steel chain snapped like twine. The truck tore through the posts, sending sparks and sheared bolts flying into the night, spinning through the wet gravel of the central yard before Maeve caught the slide, bringing the heavy vehicle to a skidding halt directly against the corrugated steel loading doors of the main processing facility.
"Gabriel!" Declan barked from the back seat, kicking the door open with his good leg. "The transformer!"
Gabriel leaned out the window and fired three heavy slugs into the massive electrical transformer mounted to the exterior wall.
The transformer detonated in a blinding fountain of blue and white lightning.
The entire pier plunged into pitch-black darkness.
"Move!" Gabriel shouted.
They breached the facility through the maintenance entrance. Inside, the air smelled of rotten fish, brine, and old copper. The only illumination came from the headlights of two idling pickup trucks parked in the center of the vast concrete floor, their beams focused on a heavy wooden chair bolted to the floor.
Roman was in the chair.
His charcoal suit was torn to ribbons, soaked in his own blood. His hands were zip-tied behind him, his head hanging low, his dark hair matted with gore.
Standing over him was Vincenzo Moretti—a stocky, broad-shouldered man in an expensive camel-hair coat, holding a pair of heavy iron pliers dripping with crimson. Around the perimeter of the room, a dozen armed men stood frozen, their weapons raised toward the dark rafters as the emergency lights flickered to life.
"Gabriel!" Vincenzo shouted, backing away from Roman, his eyes darting toward the shadows. "You should have stayed in your fortress! Now I get all three of you in one bucket!"
"You forgot to count, Vincenzo," a voice echoed through the rafters.
It wasn't Gabriel's voice.
It was Maeve’s.
Vincenzo frowned, squinting into the gloom above the trucks. "Who the hell is that?"
From the gantry crane twenty feet above the concrete floor, Maeve pulled the manual emergency release on the industrial brine line—a sixty-year-old pipe that held twelve thousand gallons of pressurized, sub-zero saltwater used for flash-freezing tuna.
The pipe ruptured with the sound of a cannon shot.
A wall of black, freezing water crashed down from the ceiling, slamming into the two pickup trucks with the force of an avalanche.
The impact crushed the truck cabs, smashing the headlights into darkness, sweeping eight of Moretti’s men off their feet and dragging them across the slick concrete floor in a roaring torrent of freezing brine.
Through the chaos, the Falcones moved like reapers.
Declan didn't run. He walked through the knee-deep water like a wounded bear, firing a heavy-caliber revolver with his right hand, each shot a deafening roar that dropped a man into the flood.
Gabriel was a blur of violence, sliding across the wet hoods of the wrecked vehicles, his shotgun barking in rhythmic, concussive blasts that shredded the catwalk supports, bringing the rusted steel structures crashing down onto the remaining shooters.
Vincenzo scrambled backward through the rushing water, dropping his pliers, reaching for the pistol tucked into his coat.
He didn't make it two steps.
Roman stood up.
The zip-ties on his wrists were already severed—sliced cleanly by a razor blade he kept hidden under his tongue. His face was a mask of bruised, bloody iron, but his dark eyes were wide open, burning with a terrifying, ancient rage.
Roman grabbed Vincenzo by the throat with both hands, lifting the two-hundred-pound man off his feet, and slammed him spine-first against the concrete pillar behind the chair.
The sound of Vincenzo’s vertebrae cracking echoed above the rush of the water.
"You touched my face, Vincenzo," Roman whispered, his voice smooth, quiet, and horrifyingly intimate. "Nobody touches my face."
He didn't use a gun. He used his bare hands.
When Roman finally stepped back, Vincenzo dropped into the receding water like an empty coat.
Silence returned to the pier, broken only by the dripping of brine from the rafters and the ragged, shallow breathing of four people standing in the dark.
Roman stood in the center of the slaughter, his white shirt ruined, his chest heaving. He looked at Declan, who was leaning against a concrete pillar, bleeding through his fresh tape. He looked at Gabriel, who was lowering his smoking shotgun with a wild, exhausted grin.
Then, Roman turned his head.
Maeve stood at the edge of the catwalk above, clutching the rusted handrail, her apron soaked, her small frame silhouetted against the gray dawn light filtering through the broken skylights.
Roman walked through the water until he stood directly beneath her. He looked up, his dark eyes searching her face, finding not a single trace of regret, not a single tear, only the fierce, unyielding pride of a survivor.
"You're four hours late for dinner, Miss Kelly," Roman said, his deep baritone carrying clearly through the empty warehouse.
Maeve looked down at the three brothers—the monsters of the city, covered in blood, standing among the corpses of their enemies.
"The lobsters went bad," Maeve shouted down, her voice steady. "You're getting pancakes."
May you like
For the first time since their father was buried ten years ago, Roman Falcone’s lips curved into a genuine, terrifying smile.
"Get in the truck, Maeve," Roman said. "I’ll buy the syrup."
