Chapter 9 - The Ambush at the Docks
Before striking the Bedford mansion, Julian needed to cut off Damian’s primary source of tactical reinforcements and heavy weaponry.
Two hours later, a convoy of unmarked black cargo vans pulled into the freezing rain of Terminal Four at the Newark shipping docks.
Damian’s personal lieutenant, a brutal enforcer named Viktor, was standing by a shipping container superintending the transfer of military-grade assault rifles.
These were the specialized European arms Julian had purchased months ago, which Damian was now stealing to fortify his takeover of the city.
Viktor stood under an umbrella, barking orders at ten armed guards who were loading crates of ammunition into the back of a transport truck.
Suddenly, the high-intensity floodlights illuminating the dock yard extinguished simultaneously, plunging the entire shipping terminal into absolute, terrifying darkness.
“What the hell happened to the power?!” Viktor shouted, drawing his sidearm and backing toward the shelter of the steel shipping container.
Before his guards could raise their flashlights, the distinct, suppressed thwip-thwip of high-velocity sniper fire echoed from the crane towers above.
Three of Damian’s mercenaries dropped instantly to the wet asphalt, their chests pierced by armor-piercing rounds before they even heard the shots.
“Ambush! Take cover!” Viktor screamed, firing blindly into the freezing darkness of the shipping containers surrounding them.
Out of the swirling shadows, fifty Moretti loyalists led by Marcus Bell descended upon the dock workers like a specialized military strike force.
The firefight was brutal, precise, and overwhelmingly one-sided as Julian’s veteran urban warfare specialists systematically dismantled the traitor’s squad.
Within three minutes, the gunfire ceased, replaced by the heavy groans of the wounded and the relentless drumming of the freezing rain.
Julian walked out from behind a steel storage stack, wearing his long black overcoat and holding his smoking suppressed pistol at his side.
He approached Viktor, who was crawling across the wet pavement with a shattered knee, trailing a dark smear of blood behind him.
Viktor rolled over, looking up at the man he thought had died in a Miami car explosion just eight hours ago, his jaw dropping in horror.
“Mr. Moretti!” Viktor gasped, holding his bloody hands up in a desperate, pathetic gesture of surrender. “I was just following Damian’s orders!”
“You took my coin for five years, Viktor,” Julian said coldly, standing over the wounded enforcer without a single trace of pity.
“When a dog forgets which master feeds him, he gets put down.”
Julian raised his weapon, firing a single, decisive round into the enforcer’s chest, ending his treason permanently on the cold asphalt.
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a custom-printed playing card—the King of Spades, the signature symbol of the Moretti leadership.
He dropped the card directly onto Viktor’s motionless chest, ensuring that whoever found the body would understand the exact message being sent.
He turned toward Marcus, who was supervising the loading of the captured military weapon crates into their own tactical transport vans.
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“The docks are secure, boss,” Marcus reported, wiping rainwater from his forehead with the back of his tactical glove. “Damian has no support left in the city.”
“Good,” Julian said, looking toward the northern horizon where the snow clouds were gathering over the Westchester hills. “Now we take the castle.”
