Chapter 8 - The Showdown at Pier 44
Pier 44 was an abandoned shipping yard that Mercer Logistics had purchased years ago and never developed. It was a desolate wasteland of rusted shipping containers, slick with freezing rain.
I stood alone under a flickering halogen streetlamp, the collar of my dark coat turned up against the wind.
At exactly midnight, a convoy of three black Escalades rolled onto the pier.
The doors opened, and a dozen heavily armed Russian mercenaries fanned out, forming a perimeter. Finally, Victor Sterling stepped out of the lead vehicle. He looked erratic, his designer suit rumpled, his face gaunt from the stress of watching his billions vanish in a single morning.
"Where is Marcus?" Sterling yelled over the howling wind, walking toward me with a smug, triumphant grin. "Where are the brats, Julian? Did you really think you could outplay me?"
I didn't move. "Marcus isn't coming, Victor. He’s currently explaining your conspiracy to a federal grand jury."
Sterling stopped. The smirk vanished from his face. He looked around the empty, silent shipping yard. Panic flickered in his eyes.
"Kill him!" Sterling shrieked, pointing a shaking finger at me. "Kill him now!"
The mercenaries raised their weapons.
Suddenly, the night sky erupted.
The rusted shipping containers all around us weren't empty. The heavy metal doors kicked open simultaneously. Floodlights blazed to life, blinding Sterling and his men. From the rooftops of the containers, dozens of red laser sights painted Sterling’s mercenaries.
My private Vanguard army hadn't stayed at the safehouse. They had been waiting in the shadows for hours.
"Drop the weapons!" my tactical commander’s voice boomed over a megaphone. "Or you die where you stand!"
The Russians were professionals. They calculated the odds—twelve of them caught in a crossfire against forty heavily armed operators with the high ground. Slowly, one by one, they lowered their rifles and dropped them to the wet concrete.
Sterling was completely alone.
He fell to his knees, the freezing sleet soaking his suit. He looked up at me, a pathetic, broken shell of a man.
"Please, Julian," he begged, his teeth chattering. "I'll sign over everything. I'll leave the country. Just don't kill me."
I walked forward until I was standing over him. I looked down at the man who had terrorized my wife and tried to steal my children.
"I'm a businessman, Victor," I said coldly. "I don't kill people. I ruin them."
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Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second. I had forwarded the red-stamped file from the hospital, along with Marcus’s confession, directly to the FBI.
"Enjoy federal prison," I whispered, turning my back on him and walking away as the red and blue lights of the police cruisers flooded the pier.
