Chapter 10 - Shadows of the Old Guard
Peace, however, is rarely handed over without one final resistance from the past.
Dominic’s past was not merely corporate; it had roots in the gritty underworld that had raised him. Salvatore ""Sal"" Moretti, an elderly capo who had run the South Side docks when Dominic was just an orphaned runner, felt entitled to the vacuum left by Arthur Vance's downfall. To Sal, Dominic's recent concessions and cooperation with federal regulators looked like cowardice—an invitation to reclaim the harbor extortion rackets Dominic had outlawed a decade ago.
It happened on a rainy Tuesday evening. Elena was resting in the bedroom when Dominic received a notification on his private phone: Sal’s enforcers had blockaded Warehouse 4 at the Calumet River, turning away Dominic's longshoremen at gunpoint.
Dominic stood in his dressing room, staring at the locked drawer where he kept a matte-black semi-automatic pistol. For fifteen years, his immediate instinct would have been simple: mobilize Marcus and twenty loyal men, roll up to the docks in black SUVs, and leave Sal’s thugs in the hospital or the river. Violence was the only dialect the South Side understood.
Elena’s reflection appeared in the vanity mirror behind him. She stood in the doorway, her hands folded over her round belly, her eyes calm but searching.
""You're deciding who you want to be,"" she said softly.
Dominic stared at the steel safe. His jaw clenched, the muscles along his neck tightening into hard cords. ""Sal is testing me, Elena. If I don't answer with strength, they'll think I'm weak. They'll come closer. They'll come here.""
""If you go down there with a gun, Dominic, you prove them right—not that you're strong, but that you are still the same frightened boy who needs violence to feel safe,"" Elena walked slowly toward him, placing her warm hand over his cold, clenched fist. ""Strength isn't making other people bleed. Strength is absorbing the blow and breaking the cycle. If our son is going to grow up with a father, you have to leave that weapon in the drawer.""
Dominic looked at her hand resting on his. He looked down at the dark tattoos lining his fingers—names of fallen friends, dates of trials, symbols of survival. Slowly, deliberately, he slid the drawer shut and turned the lock.
""Marcus,"" Dominic said into his phone, stepping out into the living room. ""Do not engage. Call the Port Authority Police and the Department of Labor. File an immediate trespassing and extortion report. Let the law take Warehouse 4.""
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Marcus was silent on the line for several long seconds. Finally, an exhaled breath came through the receiver. ""Understood, Dominic. Calling the marshals now.""
Dominic set the phone down. His heart was hammering against his ribs, but his hands were steady.
