Chapter 4 - The Safehouse Beneath the Hudson
The express freight lift didn't stop at the ground floor or the public parking garage.
It descended eighty feet below the street level into a decommissioned, concrete-reinforced transit bunker situated directly beneath the western pier overlooking the Hudson River.
The bunker was an impenetrable fortress of dark timber, industrial steel, and bank-grade servers.
Adrian led me into the central operations room. He shed his bulletproof vest, tossing it onto a stainless-steel table, his white shirt stained with gunpowder residue and rain.
He walked over to a low cabinet, poured two glasses of mineral water, and handed one to me.
“Drink,” he said gently.
My hands were shaking so violently that the water sloshed over the rim. I took a deep gulp, leaning back against the leather sofa, closing my eyes as the adrenaline crash washed over me.
“Who were those men, Adrian?” I whispered.
Adrian sat across from me on the edge of the conference desk, resting his forearms on his knees.
“Dante Moretti,” Adrian answered, his voice dripping with lethal stillness. “The head of the Moretti Logistics Syndicate. For three years, we have maintained an uneasy territorial treaty across the northern shipping ports. But Moretti just signed an illegal arms distribution contract with foreign buyers. He needed my corporate cargo permits to clear customs.”
“And you refused?”
“I don't traffic weapons, and I don't poison my own city,” Adrian replied with fierce conviction. “Moretti knew that as long as I controlled Duca Development, his shipments would be seized. So he bought Vincent Rizzo for five million dollars to slip Aconitine into my glass.”
He leaned closer, looking at the faint bruises on my wrist where Vincent had grabbed me earlier.
“Moretti’s strike team was supposed to find me dead and stage it as a heart attack. When you broke my glass and knocked me out of the way, you destroyed his entire timeline.”
“And now?”
“Now Moretti knows the maid who saved me is the only living witness who can testify to the conspiracy before the Federal Organized Crime Strike Force.”
May you like
He pulled out his satellite phone, sliding it across the desk toward me.
“Call Mount Sinai. Talk to your brother.”
