Chapter 3 - Blood on the Frozen Docks
The winter wind howling off Lake Michigan had teeth that bit right through denim and down. By ten-thirty, the sky had turned into an impenetrable sheet of lead. Pier 42 was a sprawling labyrinth of rusted red and blue shipping containers, their metal walls groaning under the gusts of sub-zero wind.
I sat in the heated leather passenger seat of Ciro’s armored Mercedes SUV, watching the security guards patrol the perimeter with assault rifles tucked beneath heavy parkas. I had changed out of the emerald dress into dark wool pants, heavy combat boots, and a shearling coat, but Ciro hadn't said a single word about the transformation. In fact, since we left the mansion, he had spoken only in curt, clipped sentences into his encrypted phone.
""Stay in the car,"" Ciro ordered, unbuckling his seatbelt as the SUV rolled to a stop outside Warehouse 7.
""I didn't ride through the snow just to fog up your windows,"" I retorted, reaching for the door handle. ""If I'm supposed to manage the maritime trust, I need to see how the manifests are cataloged on-site.""
Before my fingers could engage the latch, his hand clamped down over my wrist. His grip wasn't painful, but it was unyielding, warm against my pulse point.
""Listen to me carefully, Leora,"" he said, turning his body toward me. His dark eyes were devoid of any teasing or domestic arrogance; this was the monster the city feared. ""Kozlov is humiliated. A humiliated Russian with a coke habit and twenty armed cousins is not predictable. You stay inside the vehicle until I clear the office floor. If you disobey me out here, I will lock you in the trunk. Understood?""
The sheer audacity of the threat made my jaw drop, but the absolute sincerity in his eyes killed the retort on my tongue. ""Fine,"" I breathed.
He released my wrist, stepped out into the freezing gale, and buttoned his long black coat against the snow. Three of his lieutenants immediately flanked him, their hands inside their pockets, heads low. They moved into the open bay door of Warehouse 7 like shadows swallowed by a cave.
Five minutes passed. The heater hummed gently, blowing warm air against my frozen knees.
Then, the world shattered.
The sound wasn't a movie gunshot; it was a flat, violent crack-crack-crack like thick wood splintering under a sledgehammer, echoing from the far side of the shipping containers behind the warehouse. A split second later, the front windshield of the Mercedes spiderwebbed with a sickening thud as a high-caliber round impacted the ballistic glass directly in front of my face.
My heart vaulted into my throat. The armored glass held, but the impact sent a tremor through the entire frame of the truck.
Another burst of automatic fire ripped through the morning air, followed by the deep, thunderous boom of a shotgun. Men were shouting in Russian from behind a row of rusted containers.
I scrambled down into the passenger footwell, my breath coming in ragged, white gasps. ""Stay in the car,"" he had said. But then I saw it through the open driver-side mirror—two men in dark tactical gear were moving along the side of the warehouse, flanking the bay door Ciro had just entered, carrying fuel cans and heavy submachine guns. They were going to torch the exit and trap him inside.
Adrenaline surged through my veins, wiping away four years of civilization, four years of university lectures, four years of trying to be normal. I reached into the glove compartment. I knew Ciro Veil; I had known him since I was fifteen. He never drove a car without secondary iron.
My fingers touched the checkered polymer grip of a Glock 19. Cold. Heavy. Reassuring.
I popped the door latch and rolled out onto the frozen slush of the asphalt, keeping the heavy wheel of the SUV between me and the open pier. The wind whipped freezing needles of snow against my cheeks. I crept toward the edge of the containers, my boots crunching softly on the salt.
One of the men reached the warehouse door, unscrewing the cap of the fuel can.
I didn't hesitate. I had spent my summers at my father’s compound in northern Wisconsin learning how to put lead into silhouettes because Marco Moretti had no sons. I raised both arms, lined the front sight with the man's lower back, and squeezed the trigger twice.
The sharp recoil vibrated up my forearms. The man collapsed with a wet scream, dropping the red plastic can into the snow.
The second man whipped around, his weapon coming up toward my face—
A deafening roar split the air from the doorway.
The second man’s chest exploded backward, crimson mist spraying across the grey metal container, before he crumpled into an unmoving heap.
Ciro stepped out from the smoke of the warehouse bay, a smoking semi-automatic shotgun held effortlessly in his left hand, his face pale with a rage so terrifying it made the freezing wind feel warm by comparison. Behind him, three more bodies lay tangled in the warehouse gloom.
He didn't look at the dead men. He marched straight toward me, kicking the dropped rifle into the icy water of the basin. He reached me in three long strides, his right hand shooting out to wrap around the back of my neck, pulling me forward until my forehead was pressed against his chest.
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His heart was hammering like a war drum beneath his cashmere coat.
""Did I not tell you,"" he whispered, his voice shaking with a feral, terrifying emotion I had never heard in him before, ""to stay in the goddamn car?""
