Read Chapter 14: The Retaliation

The fog came in off the water just after midnight, thick as wool, swallowing the coast road whole. Jack stood on the rise above the hairpin turn, collar up, breath fogging, watching the yellow slits of headlamps crawl north. He counted four sets before they disappeared behind the treeline.

Four trucks. Frank was running heavy.

"Right on time," Danny whispered from the ditch. The kid was shaking, whether from cold or nerves Jack couldn't tell. Didn't matter. He needed bodies with steady hands, not steady hearts.

Jack dropped to a crouch, unrolling the plan one last time in his head. The Morettis ran Boston liquor down Route 1A three nights a week, but they'd never had trouble on this stretch. No one was stupid enough to hit a Moretti convoy. That was exactly why Frank had chosen it.

And exactly why Jack was betting everything on it.

"You know the signal," Jack said. "Flares go up, you hit the lead truck's tires. Aim low. Don't kill anyone unless you have to."

"And if they shoot first?"

"Then you shoot back." Jack stood, brushing dirt from his knees. "But they won't. They'll be too busy trying to figure out who's stupid enough to rob them."

Molly was waiting at the bottom of the hill, parked in the trees with the Packard's engine idling. She'd refused to stay home. Jack had stopped arguing with her about it two days ago, when she'd shown up at his door with the route map she'd lifted from a Moretti driver's girlfriend—a woman she knew from her days working the clubs.

"They'll be looking for men," she'd said. "They won't be looking for me."

Jack moved down the slope now, gravel crunching beneath his boots. The trucks were getting closer. He could hear the engines straining against the grade, the rattle of loose chains.

He found Molly behind the Packard, checking the revolver she'd insisted on carrying.

"Still time to back out," he said.

"Still time for you to shut up." She holstered the gun and looked at him, her face half-lit by the dash lights. "Your brother burned your warehouse. He stole your liquor. He hit you first."

"He did."

"Then stop feeling sorry about what comes next." She opened the driver's door. "Get in. We've got a show to run."

The plan was simple. Too simple to fail, Jack hoped. The convoy would hit the hairpin turn and slow to navigate the curve. Jack's men would drop the oak tree they'd cut three hours earlier across the road ahead of the lead truck, blocking the way forward. Another crew blocked the way back. Trapped in the narrow pass, the trucks would have nowhere to go but surrender.

Jack had men on both ridges, rifles ready, flares primed. He'd counted every man he had left—fourteen loyal, six already gone over to Frank's side. Fourteen against however many the Morettis had packed into those cabs.

The first truck rounded the turn, headlights sweeping across the tree line. Jack watched it slow, brake lights flaring red against the fog. The driver downshifted, grinding through the gears.

Then the second truck appeared. And the third.

The fourth hadn't made the turn yet when the first flare arced into the sky, brilliant white, hanging over the road like a falling star.

Chaos followed exactly as planned. The lead driver slammed his brakes, slewing sideways as the oak tree's silhouette materialized out of the fog ahead. Behind him, the second truck plowed into his rear bumper with a screech of metal. Men piled out of cabs, shouting, reaching for weapons.

Jack raised his rifle and fired three rounds over their heads.

"Everybody stay where you are!" His voice echoed off the bluffs. "We're not here for blood. We're here for cargo. Lay down your guns and you walk away."

A Moretti soldier named Vitale—Jack recognized him from the docks—cursed and raised his pistol. Jack's shot took him in the shoulder, spinning him into the mud of the road. The others froze.

"Next one's not a warning," Jack said.

One by one, the guns hit the ground. Jack's men swept down from the ridges, moving fast, herding the drivers against the trucks. Danny tore open the canvas tarp on the first rig, whistled low, and pulled out a case of Scotch.

"This is good stuff, Jack. The good stuff."

"Load it. Fast."

Molly guided the Packard down the slope and they worked in furious silence, transferring crate after crate from Frank's trucks to the cars and wagons they'd hidden in the tree break a quarter mile back. Jack counted as they worked. Forty cases from the first truck. Thirty-two from the second. The third was running Canadian whiskey—cheaper stock, probably destined for Frank's corner bars.

When the fourth truck finally rounded the turn—too late, brakes screaming, swerving to a stop a hundred yards back—Jack already had two vehicles loaded and pulling away into the fog.

He walked to the lead truck's cab and found the driver, a man named Dugan who'd once worked for Jack's father.

"Tell Frank the liquor's safe," Jack said. "Tell him if he wants it back, he knows where to find me."

The next morning, Jack wasn't in bed long enough to enjoy the victory.

Gus Moran sent word at eight. His man, O'Leary, found Jack in the boarding house kitchen and handed him a slip of paper with an address and a time. No signature. No invitation. Just expectation.

Jack dressed in his best suit and walked the twelve blocks to Moran's headquarters—a converted fish market on the south pier that smelled of brine and cigar smoke even from the street. He'd been here twice before. Both times he'd left owing something.

Moran was waiting in the back office, reading a newspaper with the headline "DOCK STRIKE THREATENS SHIPPING." He didn't look up when Jack entered.

"Sit."

Jack sat.

"A truck got robbed last night on Route 1A," Moran said, turning a page. "Right in my territory. My men found out about it this morning. Imagine that."

"I heard about that."

"You heard about it?" Moran finally looked up. His eyes were pale gray, like winter ice over the harbor. "By my count, you heard about it pretty early. Word on the dock says the whole thing was planned. Worked like a clock."

"The dock has a lot of talk."

"Talk's got a way of being true." Moran folded the paper and set it aside. "I told you I'd help you fight your brother, Jack. I told you I'd give you protection, storage, trucks if you needed 'em. And what was the first thing you did without asking me?"

Jack kept his face flat. "I handled my business."

"You handled your business on a road I patrol." Moran leaned forward, fingers steepled. "That's not an alliance. That's a man using another man's house as his own. You don't get to decide what happens in my territory without my say."

"Frank burned my warehouse in broad daylight. He stole from me. He went after my people."

"And I told you we'd deal with Frank." Moran's voice was quiet, almost gentle. "But you didn't want to wait. You wanted blood. And I can appreciate that. But you don't get to want blood and still tell me you're a businessman. A businessman waits. A businessman plans."

Jack said nothing. The office was silent except for the distant cries of gulls and the water against the pier.

"Here's what happens next," Moran said. "I keep the crate tax I already charged you. I don't raise it. But you tell me before you move against Frank again—any move, any strike, any negotiation. If you don't, I start charging you for the privilege of losing me as a friend."

The weight of the words pressed down. Jack felt them settling into his bones.

"I understand," he said.

"Good." Moran's face softened a fraction. "And the cargo? You hid it somewhere safe?"

"I did."

"You want to sell it back to your brother at a premium? That's your business. Just be smart about it. Don't gloat."

"I don't gloat."

"You do." Moran pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it, smoke curling toward the ceiling. "Word of advice, Jack. You're winning a battle. But you're losing the bigger war if you let pride drive you. Frank's got the Morettis behind him now. And you got a Coast Guard captain coming in fresh next week, one who's not on anybody's payroll yet. That's a war on two fronts."

"I can handle it."

"Can you?" Moran blew out a stream of smoke. "Because from where I'm sitting, your brother's breathing down your neck, the law's about to fall on this harbor, and you're spending your energy teaching lessons instead of making money. Lessons don't pay the bills, Jack. Liquor does."

Jack left the office with that hanging over him. He walked the pier slowly, the salt wind cutting through his jacket, and thought about what Moran had said.

Frank was humiliated. The word would be all over the docks within hours—Jack's own brother, robbed blind on a road he'd guaranteed was safe. Frank would seethe. He'd rage. He'd come back harder.

And Jack would have to be ready for him.

But he also had a shipment to deliver to Ashworth by Friday. He had bills to pay. He had men who needed wages. Every day he spent fighting Frank was a day he wasn't building his business.

Moran was right. He hated that Moran was right.

That afternoon, Jack found Danny at the warehouse—the cramped, rented space on Water Street that had become his operations hub since Frank burned the original. The stolen liquor was stacked in clean rows against the back wall. Danny was inventorying cases, marking numbers in a ledger.

"How much is this worth?" Jack asked.

"Wholesale, maybe twelve grand." Danny looked up, pencil in hand. "If we sell it back to Frank's buyer, we could ask fifteen. Maybe more."

"Fifteen grand buys a lot of routes. Bribes. Boats." Jack ran his hand over a case of the Scotch. He'd earned this. He'd bled for this. "You know who Frank's been selling to? The Corner Tap chain down in Fall River?"

Danny nodded.

"Send word to their manager. Tell him we've got product—fresher, cheaper than what Frank's been feeding him. Tell him we'll deliver next Wednesday."

"Frank's going to lose his mind when he finds out."

"Frank's going to lose his mind when he hears his name got crossed off another account." Jack smiled grimly. "And when he comes looking, he'll be angry. Which means he'll be sloppy."

"And us?"

"We're going to be smart." Jack looked out the small, grimy window at the harbor beyond. "We're going to make money. We're going to build a bigger operation than he can touch. And we're never going to let ourselves get so angry that we forget what we're actually fighting for."

Danny studied him a moment. "That sounds like something Gus Moran would say."

"Take the compliment how you like." Jack turned from the window. "Send the message. And get me a list of every road, every cove, every inlet between here and Providence that a boat can reach without going through the harbor. We're going to need options soon."

"New Coast Guard captain?"

"New everything." Jack moved toward the door. "The war with Frank's not over. But I can't let it be the only war I'm fighting. If I do, I lose both."

He stepped out into the gray afternoon light, the stink of fish and diesel and authority filling his lungs. Somewhere up the coast, a new captain was unpacking his bags, preparing to make his name on this harbor.

And somewhere on the north side, Frank was learning what it felt like to lose.

Jack started walking. There was work to do. And he'd be damned if he let his brother's war cost him his future.