Chapter 26 - The Shadows of South Boston
The old South Boston dry docks stood like skeletal monuments against the freezing winter twilight. Rusting cranes leaned over empty concrete basins where giant container ships used to rest, and the air smelled heavily of salt water, diesel exhaust, and freezing iron.
An idling black sedan pulled up near Warehouse 42, its lights turned off. The passenger door opened, and Dante stepped out into the freezing wind. He wore a heavy wool trench coat over his tactical vest, his face half-shadowed by the brim of a dark cap. He didn't bother hiding his approach. He walked with slow, deliberate steps toward the massive corrugated metal sliding door of the warehouse, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Inside the warehouse, a dozen men were gathered around a makeshift map table illuminated by a single dangling overhead bulb. At the center stood Vince Moretti—a sneering, ambitious punk who had inherited his uncle's cruelty without an ounce of his tactical intellect.
"Check the perimeter again," Vince snapped at one of his lieutenants. "Carter thinks he's a ghost, but once we burn his properties down, he'll crawl out of the woodwork begging for—"
*CLANG.*
The heavy metal door at the front of the warehouse didn't just open; it exploded inward, flying off its overhead tracks and crashing heavily onto the concrete floor with a deafening screech of twisted steel.
Every man in the room froze. Guns were whipped out in unison, the sharp clicks of safeties disengaging echoing through the cavernous space like a chorus of rattlesnakes.
Out of the swirling mist and freezing fog at the entrance stepped Dante.
The overhead light caught the hard, merciless angles of his face. He looked like an angel of death carved out of ice and shadow. The silence in the room became absolute, heavy enough to choke on.
"Vince," Dante said, his voice cutting through the quiet like a razor blade. "You're trespassing."
Vince’s face turned an ugly shade of purple, his eyes bulging with a mixture of shock and sheer terror. "Carter... how the hell—? Shoot him! Kill him right now!"
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Before a single trigger could be pulled, Dante moved with terrifying, blinding speed.
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