Chapter 5 - Pier 42
The rain had slowed to a miserable, freezing drizzle by the time Dominic's convoy of three black SUVs screeched to a halt outside Warehouse 7 on Pier 42.
The vast, corrugated steel building loomed out of the harbor fog like a rusted leviathan. Only a single overhead light flickered above the sliding double doors, casting long, skeletal shadows across the wet tarmac.
Dominic stepped out of his vehicle, his enforcers fanning out around him with submachine guns drawn.
"Seraphina!" Dominic’s voice boomed across the empty pier, echoing off the dark waters of the bay. "Come out and stop playing games! You can't run from me!"
A slow, rhythmic sound of heavy iron sliding open answered him.
The massive steel door of Warehouse 7 groaned as it rolled back a few feet. Inside, the cavernous space wasn't dark or abandoned; it was bathed in the cold blue light of a dozen tactical monitors operated by men in dark tactical gear.
Sitting in a high-backed leather chair in the center of the room, sipping black coffee, was Seraphina.
Standing protectively beside her was Marcus Vane, holding a tactical shotgun across his chest. In a secure glass-partitioned office inside the warehouse, Aurora could be seen sleeping peacefully on a small cot, wrapped in a warm blanket.
Dominic marched through the doorway, his enforcers swarming in behind him to cover every angle of the room.
"Have you lost your absolute mind, Seraphina?" Dominic shouted, striding forward until he was ten feet away from her. He pulled his Beretta, leveling it directly at her chest. "You think you can paralyze my ports for a few hours and walk away? I will strip every penny, every asset, and every right you have, and you'll spend the rest of your life running from my men!"
Seraphina didn't flinch. She slowly set her coffee cup down on the metal table.
She stood up, smoothing the front of her dark wool coat. She looked at the gun barrel pointing at her heart, then raised her eyes to meet Dominic's furious gaze.
"Go ahead, Dominic," Seraphina said softly. "Pull the trigger."
Dominic's finger tightened on the trigger, his breathing ragged. "Don't test me, Seraphina. Give me the override codes. Now."
"If you pull that trigger," Seraphina said, her voice cutting through the tense silence like a razor, "a deadman’s switch programmed into the federal treasury network will automatically release every single financial record, money-laundering receipt, and political bribe you’ve paid over the last ten years directly to the Department of Justice and every major news outlet in the country."
Dominic froze. The gun trembled slightly in his hand. "You're bluffing."
"Am I?" Seraphina tilted her head. "Ask Marcus how many backups of the Moretti Ledger are currently sitting in encrypted cloud vaults across Switzerland and the Cayman Islands."
May you like
Marcus nodded grimly. "Fourteen backups, boss. All tied to Mrs. Moretti's biometric heartbeat monitor. If her heart stops for more than sixty seconds, the whole syndicate goes down in flames."
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