Chapter 5 - THE DESCENT TO PIER 42
The storm over Lake Michigan had turned the water into churning black ink.
Pier 42 sat half-collapsed against the industrial shoreline of South Chicago.
Rusted grain silos towered eighty feet into the freezing fog.
The wind wailed through gaps in the corrugated iron walls like a mourning choir.
An unmarked black SUV idled two hundred yards from the warehouse gates.
Inside, Dante checked the slide of his Kimber .45.
He loaded a customized magazine of hollow-point rounds with a sharp, rhythmic clack.
Elena sat in the passenger seat.
She wore Dante’s oversized dark wool overcoat over her torn maid’s uniform.
Her hair was tied back with a piece of twine.
Her face was pale as marble, but her eyes were fixed on the rusted silo doors.
"You stay in the vehicle with Marcus," Dante said without looking up from his weapon.
"No," Elena said.
Her single word was like a knife in the dark.
Dante paused.
He looked at her.
"Elena, this is a kill zone."
"Richard Whitmore will not negotiate."
"He wants the key, and he wants me dead."
"He won't kill my mother while I'm watching," Elena said.
Her voice had no tremor.
It was pure, frozen steel.
"My mother spent thirty years wiping up blood in emergency rooms."
"She knows how to stall an execution."
"If she sees me walk in there, she will fight."
"If you go in alone, Richard will shoot her before you clear the doorway."
Dante studied her face.
He had spent fifteen years commanding hardened mobsters, killers, and corrupt politicians.
None of them possessed the raw, terrifying courage sitting in his passenger seat.
He reached into his pocket.
He pulled out a small, snub-nosed .38 revolver.
He placed it in Elena’s small palm.
"Double action," Dante instructed, wrapping his large fingers over hers.
"No safety."
"You pull the trigger, it fires."
"Aim for the center of the chest."
Elena looked down at the cold steel.
Her fingers closed around the checkered grip.
"Understood."
"Marcus," Dante spoke into his collar mic.
"Sniper teams Alpha and Bravo in position?"
"Alpha is on the rusted crane," Marcus crackled back through the earpiece.
"Bravo is on the water tower."
"Thermal imaging shows seven hostiles inside."
"One high-value target in the center."
"And the boy, boss."
Dante’s hand froze on the door handle.
"What did you say?"
"Thermal shows three heat signatures around the chair," Marcus whispered.
"One is an elderly woman."
"One is Richard Whitmore."
"The third... is a man with a severe limp."
"Lorenzo," Dante breathed.
His younger brother wasn't just a voice on the radio.
He was inside that warehouse.
Dante pushed open the heavy armored door.
The freezing rain slammed into their faces.
They walked side by side across the wet gravel.
Their boots crunched against coal dust and broken glass.
Dante pushed the rusted iron personnel door of Pier 42 open with his shoulder.
The interior smelled of damp mold, river silt, and stale tobacco.
Yellow industrial floodlights hummed overhead, casting sickly amber shadows across the concrete floor.
In the center of the vast expanse, tied to an iron pillar, sat Clara Morales.
Her head hung limply, her skin grayish-blue in the cold.
Standing five feet away, dressed in a cashmere trench coat, was Richard Whitmore.
He held a gold-plated semi-automatic pistol at his side.
Beside him stood Vanessa.
She had changed into black tactical pants and a leather jacket.
Her engagement ring was gone, replaced by a pair of brass knuckles on her right hand.
And standing in the shadows behind the pillar...
Was a man in a tattered army jacket.
His left leg was braced in rusted iron calipers.
His face was covered in a thick, graying beard.
He lifted his head into the light.
Dante stopped dead in his tracks.
The breath tore out of his chest like jagged glass.
The man had Dante’s jawline.
Dante’s dark, hooded eyes.
"Lorenzo," Dante whispered.
The bearded man smiled, a broken, bitter twist of his lips.
May you like
"Seven years in a cellar, Dante," Lorenzo rasped.
"And you brought a maid to my funeral."
