If The Seas Catch Fire(65)

One that would, in theory, be received whether the stabbed pillow was Dom or Privitera.

He gulped. It was an enormous risk. He was supposed to take the shot, not make the call. But they hadn’t given him a name. There was no guarantee he’d know Dom was aboard. He hadn’t seen the faces and didn’t know the names of the crewmen driving the boat, or the men who’d come over from the cargo ship. On a vessel this big, Dom could’ve slipped past his radar. Especially since he’d arrived late anyway.

Oblivious to Sergei watching him and contemplating his fate, Dom left the galley.

Sergei released a breath. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his neck.

Privitera it was. He couldn’t kill Dom. He just couldn’t. If a contract came along, and Dom was explicitly named as the mark, then he’d have no choice. But that wasn’t the case here. He didn’t think it was all that likely anyway—Dom was high up in the ranks, but not a key player. Men who coughed up money to take out hits wanted more important targets. Someone like Felice, if he didn’t listen to the message that Sergei had been sent here to convey.

As long as no one named Dom as a mark, Sergei wouldn’t have to cross this bridge again. He hoped.

Now… Privitera.

Sergei’s opportunity came when Privitera went past him on the way to the head.

Sergei’s stomach clenched.

Do it now, or take out Dom.

Heart thumping, he slipped out of his hiding spot.

He glanced outside. Dom and Felice were on the bow, sipping wine and talking. The workers and security men were in the living area. The boat’s crew were… well, they weren’t up here. That was all he cared about.

Sergei took a bottle of wine from the rack and sneaked past the door to the head, stepping out onto the exterior deck. He waited there until the latch on the head clicked, and then he crouched, set the wine bottle down, and let it roll along the deck. It was loud enough for Privitera to hear, and when it clinked against the bulkhead, it was less obtrusive than shattering glass.

It worked: Privitera stepped out and leaned down to pick it up.

He had his fingers on the bottle when he froze.

Slowly, he turned his head, and looked right up the barrel of Sergei’s pistol.

“Stand up.” Sergei drew the hammer back. “And don’t make a sound.”





Chapter 18


The meeting at the cargo ship had gone well enough. As always, the cargo crew sent a smaller boat out to meet the yacht, and from there, two contacts and two security guards had joined Dom and Felice on board. While the Koreans and a few men from the cargo ship transferred a dozen or so boxes onto the yacht’s lower deck, there was wine and food on the uppermost deck. Everyone introduced themselves, discussed business, and negotiated prices. The man on the ship didn’t speak much English, but the shipping manifests were clear and appeared to be correct, so Dom could work with that.

Once the meeting was adjourned, the men and workers returned to their boat, and the Koreans got to work on the lower deck. Dom stood in the background while Felice supervised.

Working quickly, the workers tore open boxes and rifled through stacks of counterfeits like children searching through cereal boxes for toys. The counterfeits were mostly designer clothing—not cheap knockoffs, but the real deal, manufactured according to the designer’s precise specifications, but in unauthorized factories in Italy and China. They’d be distributed amongst retailers in California, and sold at boutiques for eye-watering mark-ups.

They were just a front, though. Buried within the stacks of dresses, jeans, blouses, and swimwear were bricks of cocaine. One kilo apiece, wrapped in plastic.

Once the bricks were fished out of the boxes, the men quickly wrapped them in additional plastic and taped them. Then the bricks were stacked on a platform that was normally hidden by the coffee table. If the Coast Guard got too close, the platform dropped down and extended into the water between the catamaran’s hulls, quickly and quietly jettisoning the cocaine. A potentially costly but effective precaution against one hell of a prison sentence.

Assuming they weren’t boarded, though, and things progressed normally, the next step was to load one crab pot with a few kilos, and drop it for one of the fishermen to pick up. By the time the yacht returned to Cape Swan, there wouldn’t be a single grain of cocaine onboard. Every boat in the Maisano fleet had been searched a few times, and much to the investigators’ frustration, nothing had ever been found except for a few cases of contraband textiles. It was a foolproof system, one carefully developed with a thorough understanding of the laws and regulations they were breaking. A virtual guarantee that none of them would ever do time for narcotics trafficking.

When Felice was apparently satisfied that everything was progressing smoothly with today’s shipment, he gestured for Dom to follow him back to the upper deck. There, he poured them each some wine. They clinked their glasses together, and each took a sip.

“So.” Felice swirled his. “With business out of the way, I brought you out here for a reason.”

Dom’s stomach clenched. “Oh really?”

“Everywhere else in town, the walls have ears. And I’m curious…” He paused, gazing into his glass. Then his eyes flicked up and met Dom’s. “Has my brother seemed… strange to you lately?”

“Strange?” Dom set his glass down. “How so?”