Chapter 4 - Midnight at the Gallery
The old Moretti art gallery in Lower Manhattan looked abandoned from the outside, its historic brick facade swallowed by the midnight fog rolling off the East River.
Inside, however, the shadows were alive.
We moved through the dimly lit exhibition rooms like ghosts. Alessandro walked in front, his dark coat sweeping the polished concrete floor, a silenced automatic pistol held loosely in his right hand. Marco and a four-man tactical team flanked the perimeter, cutting off every possible exit.
I stayed directly behind Alessandro, my hand resting over the small, pocket-sized metal box containing the blue star button—the bait that had lured Vincent Solari out of his Chicago bolt-hole.
As we approached the central rotunda, a man stepped out from behind a massive marble sculpture of the Renaissance era.
He was in his late forties, wearing an immaculate gray suit, his silver-streaked hair slicked back. A cold, arrogant smirk played across his lips.
“Alessandro,” Vincent Solari purred, spreading his arms wide as if welcoming an old friend to a dinner party. “I must admit, I was surprised you brought the civilian along. Are you really that desperate to show your new family off before I put them in the ground?”
Alessandro didn't stop walking until he was ten feet away from Solari. He raised his weapon slightly, his posture completely relaxed.
“Vincent,” Alessandro replied evenly. “You always did have a terrible sense of theatricality. Coming to New York without checking who owns the board.”
Solari laughed, a harsh, grating sound that bounced off the high vaulted ceilings. “You think you’re untouchable because you traded your guns for art galleries and logistics firms? You went soft, Alessandro. You fell in love with a seamstress and her brat. You left your throat wide open.”
“Did I?” Alessandro tilted his head.
Before Solari could signal his hidden snipers, the overhead skylights shattered with a deafening crash.
Simultaneous flashbang grenades detonated across the rafters, bathing the rotunda in blinding white light and deafening concussive shockwaves. Before Solari’s men could draw their weapons, Marco’s tactical team descended from the rigging above like spiders, neutralizing the ambush in less than six seconds.
Solari stumbled backward, his arrogant smirk instantly replaced by sheer panic as two of Alessandro’s guards pinned his arms behind his back and forced him to his knees on the marble floor.
Alessandro stepped forward, looking down at his rival with absolute indifference.
“You tried to use a child,” Alessandro said quietly, his voice carrying the weight of an executioner. “You tried to turn the purest thing in my life into a weapon against me.”
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“Do it,” Solari spat, blood trickling from his lip. “Kill me, and the Chicago syndicates will tear your empire to ash!”
“I’m not going to kill you, Vincent,” Alessandro replied coldly. “Prison in federal custody is much lonelier. And as for your empire?” Alessandro gestured toward Marco, who was already holding up a tablet computer. “Every shell company, every shipping lane, and every property you own in three states was legally seized by the Moretti corporate trust ten minutes ago. You are a ghost, Vincent. You just don't know it yet.”
