Read Chapter 12: The New Alliance

The foundry stank of rust and coal dust, the kind of smell that clung to a man’s coat for a week. Jack stood in the open bay door, watching the empty floor where a dozen men could have worked, where Gus Moran’s voice echoed off the brick walls like he owned the very air.

“So you’re the Malloy who’s been making noise,” Gus said from a steel chair near the back wall. He was older than Jack expected, fifty at least, with a face like a used boxing glove and hands that had never held a pencil. Behind him stood two men who didn’t bother hiding their shoulder holsters. “Molly speaks highly of you. That’s worth something. Not much, but something.”

Jack walked forward, keeping his steps even. “I appreciate the time, Mr. Moran.”

“Gus. If we’re going to do business, you call me Gus.” He lit a cigarette, smoke curling around his squint. “I hear you got the harbor locked up. John Callahan eating out of your hand, deliveries going out clean. That takes brains. But I also hear your own brother walked out on you. Took the north side with some Eye-talian friends.”

Jack felt the words like a punch to the kidney but kept his face flat. “Frank’s making his own choices.”

“Choices that put him in business with the Moretti crew. You know what that means, boy?”

“It means he doesn’t want to be in my shadow.”

Gus laughed, short and sharp. “No. It means he’s got backing that wants your harbor. The Morettis don’t do this for charity. They see you as a roadblock.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “So you come to me. Why?”

Jack pulled a folded map from his coat and laid it across a barrel. The harbor, marked in pencil—two warehouses, the shack, the delivery routes. He put his finger on the north end.

“I run my cargo through the harbor. Frank’s got the north roads. But between us, there’s a stretch the Morettis want to control—the rail spur near the cannery. If they get that, they choke me out and Frank gets the whole coast.”

Gus studied the map without touching it. “You want my protection.”

“I want a partner. Someone with muscle to hold the line when I need it. Storage when I need a place to hide product that’s not mine. In exchange, I give you ten percent of every run that goes through my operation. Not the liquor. The profit. Clean money on the books.”

“Ten percent.” Gus rubbed his jaw. “That’s a tax, not a partnership.”

“It’s a start. As the volume grows, the number can grow. But I keep the decisions. I keep my crew. I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for an alliance.”

The foundry went quiet. One of Gus’s men shifted his weight, and Jack realized how exposed he was—no gun, no backup. If this went wrong, he was just another body found floating off the pier.

Gus finally stood, and Jack noticed he wasn’t much taller than Molly. But his presence filled the space. He walked around the barrel, circled Jack once, and stopped in front of him.

“Danny Costello. He’s your man, right?”

Jack nodded.

“I heard he used to run with a crew over in Fall River. Got a rep for being steady.” Gus paused. “You trust him?”

“With my life.”

“Good.” Gus extended his hand. “Because you’re going to need men you trust. I’ll give you protection. Storage in my Westbrook warehouse, the one with the false back room. You get forewarning on any police movement that comes through my channels. And if the Morettis get ideas, my boys will have a conversation with them.”

Jack took the hand. The grip was firm, dry, nothing like the sweaty palms of the men he’d bribed and bought.

“But,” Gus added, tightening his grip, “you miss a payment, you hide product from me, you go around me on anything—I’ll make the Morettis look like Sunday school teachers. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Gus released him and stepped back, already turning away. “Talk to Tommy on your way out. He’ll show you the Westbrook place. And Jack—don’t be a stranger. I got a feeling we’re going to talk a lot in the coming months.”

Jack walked out of the foundry wearing the weight of the alliance like a second coat. Ten percent of every run. A debt to a man whose temper was legend. But he had storage now, protection, early warning. The harbor was his, and now the ground around it was fortified.

He made it two blocks before Mickey caught up with him, breathless.

“Boss. Got a problem.”

Jack kept walking. “What kind of problem?”

“Frank’s moved his first load. Rumor is he’s got a deal with the Morettis for pickups off the coast near Point Judith. But that’s not the problem.” Mickey grabbed Jack’s sleeve, forcing him to stop. “One of Frank’s boys has been squatting in the shed. The one near the cannery where we were going to stage Friday’s run.”

Jack felt something cold settle in his stomach. “Which shed?”

“The one with the false panel. The one where we were going to hold the Ashworth order.”

The cold turned to ice. He’d left product in that shed. Two dozen cases of Canadian whiskey, stored there after the last run, waiting for the Friday pickup. And Frank knew about that panel. Frank had helped build it.

“When did you see him?”

“Twenty minutes ago. I didn’t know he was there ’til I was walking past. He saw me too.”

Jack turned east, toward the harbor, his strides eating the pavement. If Frank’s man had found the cache, the whiskey was already gone. The Ashworth delivery would be missed, and the new partnership with Gus would be tested before it even started.

But it wasn’t the whiskey that made him angry. It was the thought of his brother, who knew every secret Jack had ever kept, using that knowledge to gut him from the inside.

He hit the waterfront with Mickey half-running behind him and found Danny standing outside the shed, face pale.

“It’s gone, Jack,” Danny said. “The whole load. The panel was left open.”

Jack stared at the dark square of the doorway. The smell of whiskey still hung in the air, mixing with the salt and rot of the docks.

“Frank did this,” he said quietly.

“He wants you to know it,” Danny said, holding up a scrap of paper. “Left this.”

Jack took it. In Frank’s messy handwriting, four words: *Consider this a warning.*

He crushed the paper in his fist and looked at Danny, at Mickey, at the empty harbor.

“Find out where Frank’s running his next load,” Jack said. “We’re going to need to know more than his schedule. We need to know what it looks like when he loses everything.”

Danny nodded and jogged away. Mickey stepped closer.

“What about Friday? The Ashworth shipment?”

Jack looked at his empty shed, at the space where his whiskey had been, at the brother he used to know.

“I’ll handle it. But I need you to find Patrick’s letter. The one I told you to keep safe. I’m going to need that Harbor Commission letterhead.”

Mickey frowned. “What for?”

“To write a note to Frank. The kind he won’t mistake for a warning.”