Chapter 3 - The Traitor’s Mask Drops
Rain poured over the concrete labyrinth of the Brooklyn shipyards, washing away the stench of diesel and saltwater.
Inside Warehouse 14, halogen lights flickered over a fleet of black armored vehicles. Tomas stood near the edge of a shipping container, holding a satellite phone to his ear, his grey hair slicked back with rain.
"She’s alive," Tomas snarled into the receiver. "The bullet missed her heart by two inches. She dragged herself out of the garage before my men could finish her. Find her! She has the flash drive!"
"Looking for this, Tomas?"
A heavy, deliberate voice echoed from the shadowed rafters above.
Tomas froze. He slowly turned his head toward the central aisle of the warehouse.
Gabriel stepped out of the darkness. He wore no body armor, no raincoat—just his blood-stained dress shirt, his sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the dark, intricate tattoos of the Moretti bloodline. In his right hand, he held a sleek black tactical pistol.
Behind him, thirty elite Moretti enforcers stepped out from behind the shipping crates, weapons raised and locked on Tomas’s crew.
Tomas’s eyes narrowed, but he didn't panic. He let out a dry, raspy laugh. "Gabriel. You always were quick on the draw. Did you read her little love note?"
"She saved my life," Gabriel said softly, taking a slow step forward. "She took a bullet meant for me while you hid behind a column."
"She’s a fat little nobody!" Tomas spat, his polite demeanor instantly disintegrating into bitter contempt. "Your father built an empire! And you were going to hand it over to a woman who spends her afternoon baking bread and reading romance novels! She didn't belong in our world!"
"She belongs wherever I put her," Gabriel growled, his jaw clenching. "Where is she, Tomas?"
Tomas smirked, pressing a small detonator concealed in his palm. "Ask the Valenti family."
BOOM!
A violent explosion shattered the far wall of the warehouse! Cinderblocks and steel rained down as a convoy of Valenti armored trucks smashed through the perimeter, firing heavy automatic weapons into the hall!
"Ambush!" Dominic yelled, opening fire.
Muzzle flashes illuminated the smoky air as a chaotic firefight erupted. Tomas threw himself behind a steel container, scrambling toward an armed launch waiting at the dock edge.
Gabriel sprinted through the hail of gunfire, ignoring the bullets ripping through the air around him. He rounded the corner of the container just as Tomas leaped onto the deck of the speed boat.
"You're too late, Don Moretti!" Tomas shouted over the roar of the boat’s engine. "She’s already bleeding out in an alley somewhere! You’ll never find her!"
Gabriel fired three rapid shots, hitting the boat's outboard motor, but the current swept the vessel out into the dark, churning waters of the East River before he could jump aboard.
Gabriel slammed his empty magazine onto the wet pavement, gasping for air.
His phone buzzed frantically in his pocket. It was an encrypted signal from a burner number.
May you like
Gabriel answered instantly. "Speak!"
"Gabriel..." a raspy, terribly weak voice came through the speaker, punctuated by the heavy sound of rain. "It's... it's Dr. Aris. I have her... at the subterranean clinic on 4th Street... but Gabriel... she’s slipping away."
