Inicio / After I Left, the Port Boss Begged Me Back / Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

Todos los capítulos de After I Left, the Port Boss Begged Me Back: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

10 Capítulos

Chapter 1

The day I was formally appointed finance director of the Moretti Logistics branch, not one person in that office could manage a smile.Ten minutes earlier, my phone and the phones of more than thirty coworkers had all received the same anonymous text."Old friends, given the recent rise in prices and the need to maintain absolute security throughout Port San Vito, the ‘security management fee’ for every establishment will rise by twenty percent starting next month. Regards, Carlo Rossi."I stared at that line on the screen, my nails digging into my palm.It was the fourth increase this year.Every increase came exactly when our company paid bonuses, adjusted salaries, or landed a major contract.David, the veteran employee seated diagonally across from me, slammed his mouse onto the desk. "I worked twenty straight night shifts last month and finally earned an extra five hundred dollars in bonus pay! This increase is the same as snatching that hard-earned money straight out of my pocket

Chapter 2

"What did you say?"Carlo went blank for a moment, as though he hadn't heard clearly."I said, all right."I lifted my head and looked straight into those cloudy eyes."At the end of this month we will stop paying. Not just the protection money. The loading fees, the parking fees, every payment we make to you, all of it stops."Carlo narrowed his eyes as if I were a delusional fool. "Irene, did that promotion rot your brain? Stop paying, and your trucks won't even make it off this street tomorrow.""Suit yourself. Because at the end of this month the Moretti branch is pulling out of Port San Vito completely. The warehouse, the office, we don't want any of it."The announcement stunned not only Carlo but also the coworkers eavesdropping outside."Pulling out?" Carlo barked out a harsh laugh. "Haha! You think that scares me, sweetheart? Your company spent more than a million dollars fitting this place out! More than two hundred employees rent apartments nearby! Where would you go, the mi

Chapter 3

At eight in the evening a discreet black armored Bentley stopped in the shadow of the cross-harbor bridge.I opened the door and got into the back seat.Beside me sat a man in a perfectly cut suit, his head down over a tablet.The man was Alessandro Moretti, head of the Moretti Group and the Don feared throughout the East Coast.He was also my older brother.Not one person in the entire branch knew who I really was. When I graduated from business school, my brother threw me straight into the Port San Vito branch, the most complicated place he had, to toughen me up, and had me start at the bottom under my mother's surname."You've decided?" Alessandro asked in a low voice without looking up."Decided." I threw the financial statements and the record of Carlo's extortion down hard on the leather seat. "Not only are we moving, we're moving early. The pull-out was scheduled for two months from now. I want all of it done by the end of this month. And I want the mole found. Carlo knew the ex

Chapter 4

By the end of the month, cold rain had been falling for days, and Port San Vito smelled of mildew and brine.I took half a day off, called the family's moving crew, and had them remove everything I owned: the furniture, the appliances, and even the floor lamp I had bought myself.The vast apartment held nothing but the battered sofa Marianna had originally provided and a coffee table with one broken leg.At two that afternoon, someone pounded on the door with undisguised aggression.The moment I opened it, Marianna barged in on high heels. She had not come alone.Carlo came in next, wearing his gray coat. Behind him was Nico, Marianna's son and Carlo's nephew, a heavyset street thug in his early twenties with a shoddy tattoo on his neck.This was not the look of a move-out inspection. This was a raid."Well, you certainly cleared the place out." Marianna surveyed the empty living room, her shrill voice bouncing off the bare walls. "Irene, where did you hide my good furniture? Are you t

Chapter 5

"Who the hell do you think you're scaring?"My calm gaze enraged Nico, and he reached for my collar.Just then a phone rang sharply in the living room.It was Marianna's phone.She frowned and answered, "Hello? What is it... What? You're not coming to see the apartment this afternoon? Why? We already agreed..."The caller hung up on her.Marianna swore, and before she could put the phone down it rang again."You're canceling too? If the price is the problem, we can negotiate... What do you mean this district is done? Explain yourself!"A third. A fourth. A fifth.Within five minutes, every prospective tenant scheduled to view the apartment that day called Marianna to cancel, one after another, as if they had coordinated it.Carlo immediately sensed that something was wrong. "What's going on?"When the final call came, Marianna put it on speaker and shouted in frustration, "Did you all conspire to make a fool of me?! What do you people want?"A cold male voice came through the speaker.

Chapter 6

Heavy, steady footsteps came from the far end of the corridor.The men in black outside moved aside on their own and lowered their heads respectfully.Alessandro Moretti entered in a bespoke suit. His gaze passed over Carlo and went straight to me.He looked first at the red marks Nico had left on my wrist, then at the phone shattered on the floor. His brow furrowed slightly.That tiny movement drained the last strength from Carlo's legs. He dropped to his knees with a thud."Mr. Moretti..." Carlo forced out a smile uglier than a sob. "This truly is a misunderstanding... a rental dispute. The boy didn't know any better, and his temper got the better of him...""A misunderstanding?"Alessandro approached the broken coffee table, pinched the absurd bill demanding another seven thousand dollars between two fingers, glanced at it, and tossed it into Carlo's face."You collect protection money on your own turf. Extorting those poor shopkeepers is how you survive, and I never cared enough to

Chapter 7

Mark's mother jabbed a finger at Carlo and Marianna, spraying spittle toward their faces."This is all your fault, you bloodsuckers! If you hadn't pressured Mark every day to dig up company secrets, would internal audit have fired him? He was supposed to become deputy manager next month, and now it's all ruined!"Marianna promptly put her hands on her hips and fired back. "The hell it is! He wasn't saying that when he took our information fees. He set up that private group, and every landlord and bar owner who joined paid five hundred dollars in membership. Did ghosts swallow that money? Nobody held a knife to his throat to make him set up that group!"Mark had kept his head down the entire time, trembling violently. Then he cautiously looked up and saw Alessandro standing in the middle of the living room.He dropped to his knees on the shattered glass with a thud."Mr. Moretti..." Mark's voice was full of despair. Then he saw me standing beside Alessandro."Irene... so you are..." Mar

Chapter 8

Two days later, an icy rain fell over Port San Vito.At eleven that night, the Moretti Group's final convoy prepared to leave. Twelve heavy trucks switched on their headlights one after another, and their engines roared through the deserted old district.Ordinary employees had all been moved to North Port. All that was left tonight were the drivers and the Moretti family's own people.I insisted on being there. I wanted to watch the gate that had imprisoned us for two years close forever.Alessandro and I stood beside the first truck, with Victor and a dozen expressionless men in black spread out around us.The first truck had just begun to move, its cab rounding the corner, when—Screech. Bang!A battered black pickup roared out of a side street like a charging bull, skidded broadside across the slick road, and blocked the entire intersection."Ambush! Take cover!" Victor shouted.A second later, a gunshot cracked through the rain-soaked night.The shot shattered the second-floor ware

Chapter 9

The so-called underworld council consisted of only a handful of old-family bosses who controlled East Coast shipping routes and the criminal order beneath them.The next morning, with a bandage wrapped around my arm, I waited in the black sedan at the back door of the Bellini Club.The meeting lasted less than two hours.When Carlo came out the back door of the club, he looked as though he had aged twenty years in an instant.Victor opened the door. Alessandro slid into the back seat and tossed a napkin covered in terms onto the center console."It's over," Alessandro said calmly. "The Rossi family is finished."I picked up the napkin. It bore the council's indisputable ruling:One: Carlo seriously violated the rules by opening fire on a direct member of the Moretti family without authorization. Effective immediately, his right to collect protection money anywhere in Port San Vito is revoked indefinitely.Two: the Rossi family's interests in three parking lots and two illicit bars will

Chapter 10

Within three months, Port San Vito had become a ghost town.The vacancy rate hit a staggering seventy percent. At night the whole street was pitch dark, without so much as a soul in sight.The Rossi crew refused to wait quietly for ruin. Marianna found a third-rate online content creator and posted a self-pitying video.In the video, Marianna sobbed uncontrollably. "Moretti is a heartless corporation with no sense of social responsibility! They moved out without warning and abandoned those of us who have lived here for years. More than a hundred families have lost their income, and we can't even put food on the table! We demand compensation!"The video sparked a brief flare of resentment against the wealthy online. People who knew nothing about the situation piled into the comments and called us cold-blooded capitalists."So you want a public-relations war?" From my bright, spacious finance director's office at the new North Port campus, I watched the ugly performance on-screen.I post

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