Chapter 4 - Carmine’s Move
While Dominic’s armored sedan safely delivered Nora and Leo to their modest Queens apartment, across town in a lavish, dimly lit Italian restaurant in Little Italy, Carmine Russo was celebrating. Carmine sat surrounded by six of his top capos, pouring vintage red wine and laughing loudly. He was a slick, ambitious man with slicked-back dark hair, wearing a white silk shirt unbuttoned at the collar to reveal a heavy gold chain. “I hear the great Dominic Russo spent his fortieth birthday all by himself in a fifty-thousand-dollar ballroom,” Carmine crowed, swirling his wine glass. “Not a single capos showed up. Not a single associate bent the knee. The cripple is finished!” Laughter erupted around the table. One of Carmine’s enforcers, a scarred brute named Frankie, leaned forward. “We heard some weird rumor, Boss. Some delivery woman wandered into the hotel with a pink cake box while you were planning your next move. Tony Mancini drove them home in an armored car.” Carmine waved a hand dismissively, a sneer twisting his lips. “A delivery woman? Let the cripple have his cake. While he’s playing domestic with bakers and children, we take over his shipping docks in Brooklyn by morning. By the time the sun comes up, those terminals belong to us.” Carmine raised his glass high. “To the new king of New York!” But Carmine’s celebration was premature. What he failed to understand was that Dominic Russo wasn't hiding; he was calculating. By midnight, Tony Mancini had returned from Queens, parking the sedan in the underground garage of Dominic’s fortified penthouse on Park Avenue. Tony stepped out, walking briskly up to Dominic’s private study, where maps of the city’s shipping lanes and territory markers were spread across a mahogany desk. “They’re safe, Boss. The boys are stationed outside her building. No one touches them,” Tony reported, placing his keys on the desk. “Good,” Dominic replied, not looking up from a ledger. “What about Carmine?” “Our contacts on the Brooklyn docks say Carmine’s crew is planning a coordinated move on Terminal Four at sunrise. They think we’re too paralyzed to defend it.” A cold, razor-sharp smile touched the corners of Dominic’s mouth. He looked up, his slate-grey eyes burning with lethal clarity. “Carmine thinks my legs define my power. He thinks my absence in that ballroom meant my empire was up for grabs.” Dominic gripped the wheels of his chair, pivoting sharply toward Tony. “Let’s go teach my cousin a lesson in real estate.”
