Chapter 6 - THE WATERFRONT WAR
Rain lashed against the black fleet of armored vehicles as they tore through the desolate industrial outskirts of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Thunder shook the heavy iron bridges, drowning out the roar of turbocharged engines.
Frank Costello had summoned the Iron Guard—the elite, battle-hardened loyalists who lived in the fortified compound in Staten Island, men who had taken their blood oaths to Elena’s father thirty years prior. Within two hours, fifty heavily armed soldiers in black tactical gear assembled at the perimeter of Pier 42.
Inside the command SUV, Frank was strapping on a Kevlar assault vest over a fresh black shirt. Next to him, Villa wore a heavy tactical jacket three sizes too large for her, her fingers firmly buried in Titan’s collar. Frank had tried to order her to remain behind at the fortified safehouse, but for the first time in his life, someone had defied him to his face.
"If he took nineteen years of my life," she had told him, her hazel eyes blazing with the exact same lethal intensity that made the entire eastern seaboard fear the Costello name, "I am going to watch him pay for it."
Frank had not argued. He had handed her a compact ceramic pistol, taught her the safety mechanism in under two minutes, and watched her chamber a round with steady hands.
"Warehouse Four," Marco reported from the front passenger seat, looking up from a thermal mapping tablet. "Falcone has thirty men inside. He’s gathered the heads of the Five Families under the pretense of an emergency Commission meeting. He’s forcing them at gunpoint to sign over the Atlantic shipping manifests before he flees to a cargo freighter bound for South America."
"He won't make it to the water," Frank said coldly. He turned to Villa. "You stay behind Marco and me. If anything moves that isn't wearing a silver Costello crest on its collar, you put a bullet in it. Do you understand me?"
"Yes," she said firmly.
Frank kicked the SUV door open into the torrential downpour.
The assault was instantaneous and overwhelming. Frank’s men breached the heavy steel bay doors with linear shaped charges. BOOM! The doors blew inward, sending Falcone's sentries sprawling across the grease-stained concrete floor. Costello soldiers swarmed inside under the cover of blinding flashbang grenades.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Gunfire erupted across the massive warehouse. Falcone’s mercenaries returned fire from behind shipping containers and towering wooden crates, but they were no match for the ferocious, coordinated precision of the Costello Iron Guard.
Frank walked straight through the center of the kill zone like an immortal specter of death. With ruthless, terrifying efficiency, he dropped three mercenaries who attempted to flank the entry team. Beside him, Titan was a blur of black and gold, ripping into enemy lines, disarming shooters before they could steady their sights.
At the far end of the warehouse, beneath the flickering halogen floodlights, the Don of each major New York crime family sat bound to heavy steel folding chairs. Don Moretti, Don Lucchese, and the elders of the Commission watched with wide eyes as the gunfire ceased, leaving Carmine Falcone standing alone on an elevated iron gantry platform, clutching a heavy submachine gun.
"Stay back, Frank!" Falcone screamed, his eyes wild, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and rain coming through the warehouse's broken skylights. "Stay back, or I’ll blow this entire terminal sky-high! I have the fuel lines rigged to timers!"
Frank stopped at the foot of the iron staircase, lowering his rifle. "It’s over, Carmine. Sofia is in federal custody. Your banks in Zurich were frozen twenty minutes ago. You have nothing."
"I have this!" Falcone roared, aiming his weapon down at Frank.
Before Falcone could pull the trigger, a sleek shadow moved silently along the scaffolding above him.
Villa, who had slipped away from Marco during the initial breach, had scaled the maintenance ladder on the warehouse wall. She stood on the high iron catwalk, her ceramic pistol gripped in both hands, leveled straight at Carmine Falcone’s chest.
"Drop it!" her clear, ringing voice echoed through the warehouse rafters.
Falcone spun around, his jaw dropping in sheer disbelief as he stared down the barrel of a gun held by the girl he had discarded in a Queens snowstorm nineteen years ago.
"You..." Falcone spat, trembling with venomous rage. "The kitchen rat."
"I am Villa Costello," she said, her voice completely devoid of fear. "And you killed my mother."
Falcone raised his weapon toward her, sneering. "Like mother, like daughter—"
BANG!
Villa fired. The round punched through Falcone’s right shoulder with surgical precision. The heavy submachine gun slipped from his shattered grip, clattering over the railing and plunging forty feet onto the concrete floor below.
Falcone screamed in agony, collapsing against the iron safety rail.
Below, Frank bounded up the iron stairs three at a time. He seized Falcone by the throat with a massive, gloved hand and hauled the terrified Don halfway over the high railing, dangling him above the concrete floor.
"Wait! Frank, please! For the old days!" Falcone choked out, tears of terror mixing with the rain on his cheeks. "We were brothers once! We built this city together!"
"You threw my infant daughter into a freezing river and left her in the snow," Frank snarled, his voice a horrifying death rattle. "There are no old days left for you."
Frank released his grip.
Carmine Falcone plummeted forty feet into the abyss, his body crashing into the dark, churning waters of the East River below, swallowed instantly by the black current.
Silence fell over the warehouse. The bound mob bosses stared in stunned awe.
Frank slowly walked over to Villa, who was standing on the wet metal grating, lowering her smoking pistol. Her hands were shaking now that the adrenaline was fading, but she stood tall.
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Frank didn't say a word. He pulled her into a fierce, bone-crushing embrace. Villa buried her face into her father’s shoulder, the tears finally flowing freely into the wet fabric of his coat.
Titan bounded up the iron steps, letting out a loud, joyous bark that echoed off the metal roof, rubbing his broad head against both of them, sealing the family reunited in fire and blood.
