Chapter 4 - The Traitor's Price
The rain had returned with a vengeance by the time we reached the shipping terminal at the edge of Lake Michigan. The wind was whipping off the water, driving the cold spray against my face as we navigated the maze of towering metal shipping containers that lined the docks.
This was the heart of Dante's logistics empire. Every container that entered this port had to be logged, cleared, and approved by his department. It was the perfect place to hide millions of dollars in untraceable cash, ready to be loaded onto a private yacht or a cargo ship heading out of the country.
We found the Cadillac parked near the edge of pier seven, the driver's side door left wide open, the rain soaking the leather seats.
A single trail of wet footprints led toward a massive, grey cargo vessel anchored at the end of the pier. The ship’s lights were off, its dark silhouette rising against the stormy sky like a ghost ship.
"Luca, take the gangway," I whispered, pulling my own weapon from my coat. "I'll take the stern."
I walked along the wet wooden planks of the pier, my footsteps swallowed by the roaring wind and the rhythmic, heavy crash of the waves against the iron hull of the ship. I climbed the rusted metal stairs at the back of the vessel, my eyes scanning the dark deck.
Near the pilot house, a door was slightly ajar, a sliver of yellow light cutting through the darkness.
I pushed the door open, my gun raised, my finger light on the trigger.
Dante sat at a small wooden desk inside the cabin, a large, metal briefcase open before him. It was packed to the brim with stacks of hundred-dollar bills, wrapped in neat, plastic bands. He was typing furiously on a rugged, military-grade laptop, his face illuminated by the cold blue light of the screen.
Beside him stood a tall, muscular man with his back to me. The man wore a leather jacket, and as he turned his head at the sound of the door opening, the yellow cabin light caught the dark, twisting ink of a black mamba tattooed across his neck.
The snake.
"Leo," Dante said, not looking up from his screen. "I figured you'd come here first. You always were sentimental about the docks. You like the smell of the water. It reminds you of your father."
"You used my name, Dante," I said, my voice steady, my weapon pointed directly at his chest. "You let your men put their hands on a woman and a child in my territory. You used my ledger to steal from the people I swore to protect."
"Protect?" Dante let out a short, dry laugh, finally closing the laptop and looking up at me. His eyes were empty, devoid of any fear. "You think this city cares about your protection, Leo? They pay us because they're terrified of us. But terror doesn't pay the interest on a ten-million-dollar expansion. Your father was a dreamer. He wanted to be a businessman. But we are monsters, Leo. And monsters need to be fed."
The man with the snake tattoo moved his hand toward his pocket, but before he could draw, a single, deafening crack echoed through the cabin.
The window behind the man shattered as a high-caliber round tore through his chest, sending him crashing backward against the metal wall, his blood spraying across Dante's laptop.
Luca stood in the doorway, his sniper rifle still smoking, his face as pale and unyielding as the concrete docks below.
Dante didn't flinch as the blood hit his cheek. He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, gold-plated lighter, flicking the flame to life.
"You can kill me, Leo," Dante whispered, his voice trembling slightly for the first time. "But if I drop this lighter, the accounts are wiped. The offshore server is programmed to self-destruct if I don't enter the termination code every ten minutes. If I die, fifty million dollars of your family’s money vanishes into the ether. You'll be bankrupt before the sun comes up."
I looked at the lighter in his hand. I looked at the briefcase of cash. Then, I thought of Emma, sitting in the back of my car, her cold, wet fingers clutching my sleeve, begging me to save her mother because she had been told I was the man everyone was scared of.
"My father told me something before he died, Dante," I said, taking a step forward. "He said a man who trades his honor for a bank account is a king of nothing but dirt."
I didn't shoot his chest.
I shot his wrist.
The small gold lighter fell from his limp, bleeding fingers, clattering against the wooden floor before rolling into the pool of the snake's blood, the flame sputtering and dying instantly. Dante screamed, grabbing his shattered wrist, his body collapsing over the metal briefcase as the laptop screen flashed red, then went completely black.
May you like
The accounts were gone. The empire was safe, but the money was dead.
"Let's go, Luca," I said, turning my back on the screaming man on the floor. "We have a florist shop to rebuild."
