Chapter 3 - THE WOLF IN THE NORTH END
The rain had stopped by 3:00 AM, leaving the cobblestones of Boston’s North End slick and glistening under the amber glow of old streetlamps.
We didn't take a car. Dante’s black SUV had been blown to pieces in the alley behind Sullivan’s Diner. Instead, we moved like shadows through the service corridors of the historic district, slipping past closed bakeries and sleeping trattorias until we reached the abandoned brick warehouses lining the inner harbor.
Inside the largest warehouse, crates of imported Italian marble and luxury goods towered toward the vaulted ceiling. In the center of the cavernous space, a group of men stood around a steel barrel heater, drinking scotch and laughing.
At the center of them stood Julian Moretti.
He looked enough like Dante to be a mirror image, save for the cruel, predatory smirk that twisted his features and the expensive Italian suit that looked completely out of place among the grime of the docks.
“I told you,” Julian was saying to one of his lieutenants, swirling amber liquid in a crystal glass. “The bomb on the convoy took care of Dante. The twins are probably in a dumpster somewhere by now, and the empire is ours. By tomorrow morning, the board will vote me in as head of the family.”
“Is that right?” a voice rang out from the shadows near the loading bay.
The laughter died instantly.
Julian spun around, dropping his glass. It shattered against the concrete, the amber liquid splattering across his shiny leather shoes.
Step by step, Dante emerged from the darkness. He had a tactical vest strapped over a fresh black shirt, an automatic rifle held loosely in his right hand, and an aura of pure, unadulterated vengeance radiating from every inch of his body.
Behind him, I stood near the heavy sliding door, holding Sofia against my chest while little Luca slept soundly in the carrier. Dante’s elite security detail—men who had survived the ambush and regrouped within hours—had already fanned out across the catwalks above, their rifle lasers painting red dots across every single one of Julian’s guards.
“D-Dante?” Julian stammered, color draining entirely from his face. “How... how are you alive?”
“It takes more than a coward with a bag of C4 to kill me, little brother,” Dante said smoothly, his boots echoing sharply against the concrete floor as he closed the distance between them.
Julian’s guards reached frantically for their waistbands, but before their fingers could even brush their holsters, the laser dots on their chests tightened.
“Don't do it,” Dante’s lead enforcer called down from the catwalk. “Unless you want your brains splattered across the marble crates.”
The guards froze, their hands slowly raising into the air.
Julian backed up against the steel barrel, trembling. “Dante, wait! We’re family! We can share this! We can split the territory—!”
“Family?” Dante cut him off, his voice like the crack of glacial ice. “You killed my wife. You tried to burn my children alive. You traded your blood for a seat at a table you aren't worthy of sitting at.”
Dante raised his weapon, but before he could pull the trigger, Julian lunged to the side, snatching a pistol from the top of a crate and aiming it straight at me across the room.
“If I’m going down, I’m taking your little waitress whore and your bastards with me!” Julian screamed, his finger tightening on the trigger.
My breath caught in my throat.
Crack.
A single, deafening gunshot echoed through the warehouse.
It wasn't Dante’s rifle.
From the shadows near the doorway, a figure stepped forward, smoke curling from the barrel of a customized tactical pistol.
Julian’s eyes went wide. The pistol slipped from his nerveless fingers, clattering against the concrete. He clutched at his shoulder where a clean hole had punched through his expensive suit, spinning around before collapsing hard onto the floor.
I looked over and saw one of Dante’s senior captains lowering his weapon, nodding respectfully to his boss.
Dante didn't even blink. He walked over to where Julian lay groaning in agony, pressed the heel of his boot directly onto his brother’s uninjured shoulder, and leaned down.
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“You’re alive, Julian,” Dante whispered, loud enough for everyone in the warehouse to hear. “And you’re going to stay alive. You’re going to spend the rest of your natural life in a maximum-security black site beneath Boston Harbor, where no one will ever hear you scream.”
He signaled his enforcers. Two men moved in instantly, dragging Julian away like a sack of garbage as he wept and begged for mercy.
