Chapter 21 - High Above the Harbor
"Dominic, the manual hydraulic bleed valve!" Faith yelled, pointing up toward the external gantry arm where a thick tangle of braided hydraulic hoses fed the primary winch drum. "If you sever the main pressure line before the electrical release triggers, the safety brakes will lock the cable drum mechanically! The container won't drop!"
"The bleed valve is located on the outer jib, thirty feet past the operator's cabin!" I said, looking out along the narrow, open-air steel lattice that stretched over the open water. "There’s no railing out there!"
"I’ll cover the ladder!" Sal shouted, drawing his pistol and aiming toward the lower deck where headlights were suddenly sweeping into the container yard. "Matteo’s backup just arrived at the gates! Go, Dominic! Go!"
I grabbed the heavy maintenance wrench clipped to the railing and charged up the vertical stairs toward the operator’s cabin. Faith was right behind me, refusing to stay in the shadows, her eyes locked on the countdown clock.
"Faith, stay on the landing!" I ordered as we reached the cabin platform.
"Not a chance!" she shot back, gripping the rail. "You need someone to bypass the electronic override while you crack the valve! We do this together or we don't do it at all!"
Before I could argue, the glass door of the operator's cabin shattered outward.
Matteo Rossi charged out onto the metal platform, a heavy European automatic weapon raised in his right hand, his tailored silk shirt torn and stained with grease. His aristocratic elegance had completely disintegrated, replaced by the feral, desperate madness of a cornered predator.
"You took my family's legacy, you peasant!" Matteo shrieked, firing a round directly at my chest.
I twisted violently, the bullet grazing the fabric of my shoulder, tearing through the wool and grazing the flesh beneath. The sheer force threw me back against the safety rail. Matteo lunged forward, raising the weapon to deliver a point-blank execution shot.
"Get away from my husband!" Faith screamed.
With the same fierce, unyielding ferocity she had displayed at Iron Street, Faith threw her entire weight into Matteo’s ribs, tackling the taller man against the cabin doorframe. The gun discharged harmlessly into the night sky, and the weapon slipped from Matteo’s grasp, clattering across the steel grating before dropping through the gaps into the black water sixty feet below.
Matteo roared with fury, his hands flying to Faith’s throat, driving her backward over the low edge of the walkway. "I’ll drop you into the lake first, you little whore!"
The sight of Faith choking, suspended over a lethal plunge into the dark depths of Lake Michigan, shattered every remaining boundary of human restraint within me.
The pain in my grazed shoulder vanished. I surged forward, planting my feet with absolute, bone-crushing leverage, and drove my fist into Matteo’s temple with the force of a hydraulic piston. His head snapped back, his grip tearing free from Faith’s throat. I grabbed the front of his silk collar, spun him around, and slammed him hard against the steel crane column.
"You don't touch my wife," I snarled into his ear, my voice deeper than the grave. "And you don't touch my city."
I struck him twice more—crisp, devastating blows to the jaw and solar plexus—until his eyes rolled back and he slumped unconscious onto the metal platform.
"Dominic! The timer!" Faith gasped, clutching her bruised neck, pointing up at the red beacon.
Twenty seconds remaining.
I grabbed the heavy wrench, stepped onto the open-air steel lattice of the outer jib, and walked out into the void.
The Chicago wind howled around me, threatening to tear me from the narrow beam. Sixty feet below, the black lake churned like liquid obsidian. But I didn't look down. I kept my balance, my stride steady and unbroken, trusting the legs that had carried me out of hell.
I reached the primary hydraulic junction. The timer on the gantry horn began its final, continuous scream.
Ten seconds.
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I jammed the steel wrench onto the primary pressure nut, set my heels against the iron truss, and pulled with every ounce of strength remaining in my body.
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