Chapter 3 - The Blood Alliance
The Blue Anchor Tavern smelled of stale beer, cigar smoke, and cheap leather.
Located near the foggy piers of Red Hook, Brooklyn, the tavern had been a safehouse for the Moretti family for fifty years. Tonight, the streets outside were completely clear of traffic—cleared out by corrupt local precinct officers who knew when to look the other way.
Inside, twenty enforcers in heavy coats sat at the wooden booths, their arms crossed, their hands resting near hidden holsters.
At the far table sat Marco Moretti.
Marco was forty-five, heavy-set, with a scarred neck and slicked-back black hair. He was cutting a thick ribeye steak with a silver knife when the tavern doors swung open.
Adrian Valenti stepped inside.
He wore no coat against the freezing ocean drizzle. He walked alone. No Leo, no armed guards behind him. Just thirty-nine years of absolute confidence wrapped in an Italian suit.
The entire tavern went dead silent. Twenty handguns clicked subtly beneath tables.
Adrian didn't glance at the enforcers. He walked straight to Marco’s table, pulled out a heavy oak chair, and sat down.
Marco smiled, wiping grease from his lips with a napkin. "Adrian. You actually came alone. I thought you’d bring your army."
"I don't need an army to talk to a dog, Marco," Adrian said smoothly.
Marco’s smile faltered, his jaw clenching. "You’ve got a big mouth for a man whose housekeeper just got put on a plane to Italy. Renata was a good woman. She knew when the wind was blowing toward a new king."
"Renata was a fool," Adrian replied calmly. "And you are a thief. You took my docks at Pier 4."
"Those docks belong to whoever can hold them," Marco sneered, leaning across the table. "Your father is dead, Adrian. You’ve spent the last three years playing businessman—buying real estate, investing in legal shipping, soft-hearted. I heard you even took in a charity case. A maid and her little bastard."
The temperature in the tavern seemed to drop twenty degrees instantly.
Adrian leaned forward, his hands resting flat on the wooden table. "Careful, Marco."
"Why should I be careful?" Marco laughed, waving his steak knife. "You're soft, Valenti! You’re living in that giant house with a little girl and a pretty maid, acting like a suburban father! You’ve forgotten what made your family feared! So here’s the deal: you give me Pier 4 and Pier 7, or tomorrow morning, the press gets a story about how the great Don Valenti is harboring a woman whose late husband owed two million dollars to the Irish mob in Boston."
Adrian’s eyes flickered. A tiny, dangerous detail had just entered the room.
"Her husband," Adrian repeated softly. "Sean Brooks."
"Yeah," Marco grinned wickedly. "Sean took a loan from the O'Connors before he died. They've been looking for his widow to collect. I told them where she was yesterday. Unless you give me those piers, the O'Connors will burn your estate to the ground to get their money."
Adrian stared at Marco for three seconds.
Then, faster than a striking viper, Adrian’s left hand shot across the table, grabbing Marco by the throat and slamming his head face-first into the cast-iron plate.
CRACK.
Blood erupted from Marco’s broken nose. The twenty enforcers jumped to their feet, pulling their weapons.
"Sit down!" Adrian roared, his voice booming like thunder through the tavern.
He didn't draw a gun. He simply pressed a small black detonator switch—held in his right hand beneath the table—onto the wood.
"There are four pounds of C4 strapped beneath the floorboards of this tavern," Adrian said smoothly, his hand still crushing Marco’s throat against the broken plate. "Leo Vance installed it twenty minutes before I walked through that door. If one of your men raises a barrel, we all go to hell together."
The twenty enforcers froze, looking down at the wooden floorboards in sheer terror.
Marco choked, spitting blood onto the tablecloth. "You're... you're crazy..."
"Sean Brooks didn't die in an accident," Adrian whispered into Marco’s bleeding ear. "Your brother Dominic paid off the crane operator to drop that container on him because Sean refused to let your men use his cargo trucks for human trafficking."
Marco’s eyes widened in genuine horror. "How... how do you know that?"
"Because I own the crane operator’s confession," Adrian said coldly. "And now I own you."
Adrian tightened his grip, leaning closer. "If the O'Connors come near my estate, I will wipe the Moretti family off the map of New York. Every warehouse. Every ship. Every brother. Do you understand me?"
"Yes! Yes!" Marco gasped, thrashing in pain.
May you like
Adrian let go of his throat, standing up and smoothing his lapels. He looked around the tavern at the twenty frozen enforcers.
"Tell Dominic that the Valenti family isn't soft," Adrian said softly. "We were just waiting for a reason to go to war."
