Chapter 5 - THE PIER STANDOFF
The rain lashed across the harbor in horizontal sheets.
Marcus Vance stood sixty feet away on the concrete dock.
His white hair was slicked back against his scalp under the streetlights.
He held a gold-headed cane in his left hand, leaning his weight forward with aristocratic ease.
Beside him, Julian Vance stood nursing a wrapped wrist, his eyes burning with venom.
"You made a mistake, Declan," Marcus called out.
The old man’s voice carried clear over the crashing waves.
"You took an employee matter and turned it into an act of war between our families."
Declan stepped to the edge of the yacht’s rail.
He didn't raise his hands.
He kept his overcoat unbuttoned, the butt of his Sig Sauer visible at his shoulder.
"Your son kidnapped a civilian from her home, Marcus."
"He used medical neglect as leverage to forge federal customs seals."
"In my territory."
Marcus laughed.
A dry, rattling sound like dead leaves scraping across concrete.
"Your territory ends at the curb of Wacker Drive, boy."
"Your father knew how to compromise."
"You inherited his chair, but not his brains."
Julian stepped forward, pointing an accusing finger at the yacht.
"The girl’s father signed a promissory note!"
"He pledged all family assets against the loan!"
"That includes her sister's legal custody!"
Declan looked at Julian with cold contempt.
"You aren't a banker, Julian."
"You're a parasite living off your father's political bribes."
Marcus Vance tapped his cane against the wet pavement with a sharp, metallic ring.
The six men with shotguns raised their barrels.
The sound of twelve shells being chambered simultaneously echoed across Slip Forty-Eight.
"Here is the proposition, Declan," Marcus said.
"Send the Jenkins girls down the gangway."
"Leave the files Julian asked for on my desk by midnight."
"And I will overlook the fact that you broke my son's nose."
Behind Declan, the salon door opened.
Norah appeared on the threshold.
She had wrapped Clara in the heavy wool blanket, supporting her sister’s weight with her shoulder.
Clara was semiconscious, her boots dragging on the teak deck.
Norah took in the six shotguns, the blinding headlights, and Marcus Vance’s predatory grin.
Her breath hitched.
"Declan," she whispered, her voice trembling.
"Don't die for us."
"Give them the manifests."
Declan didn't turn his head.
"Go back inside, Norah."
"Declan, please—"
"I don't give away what belongs to my house," Declan said.
He looked back across the gangway at Marcus Vance.
"You have five seconds to clear those cars off my pier, Marcus."
Marcus smiled pityingly.
"You're outnumbered, Declan."
"You have one bodyguard and a pistol against tactical grade twelve-gauge rounds."
"Count to five if it makes you feel like a boss."
Declan did not count.
He raised his left hand toward the dark waters of Lake Michigan behind the pier.
A low, deep rumble shook the concrete foundation of Navy Pier.
It wasn't thunder.
It was the diesel rumble of three eighty-foot harbor tugboats cutting through the fog.
From the black water, three massive commercial vessels surged toward Slip Forty-Eight.
Mounted on their elevated wheelhouses were high-intensity maritime searchlights.
All six searchlights snapped on simultaneously.
Fifty thousand lumens of blinding white light blasted directly into the faces of the Vance crew on the dock.
The shotgunners shouted, shielding their eyes from the agonizing glare.
Marcus Vance staggered back half a step, raising his cane to block the beam.
High-pressure water monitors on the bows of the tugs rotated toward the dock.
Industrial water cannons used for fighting shipboard petroleum fires.
"Hold!" Marcus yelled, his aristocratic composure cracking.
Declan stepped down onto the gangway.
He walked down the wooden ramp through the blinding white light.
"You forgot one thing, Marcus," Declan said.
His voice cut through the roar of the diesel engines.
"My family doesn't just own the shipping terminals."
"We own the tugboat union."
Declan stopped at the foot of the ramp, ten feet from Marcus Vance’s front bumper.
"If those shotguns don't hit the concrete in three seconds," Declan said,
"my captains will open those water monitors at six hundred pounds per square inch."
"It will sweep your men, your cars, and your son into forty feet of freezing lake water."
The guards looked at the massive nozzles aimed at their chests.
They knew what industrial water pressure did to human ribs.
One guard dropped his shotgun.
The metal clattered loudly on the wet concrete.
The other five immediately followed, tossing their weapons onto the ground.
Julian turned pale, scrambling back toward the safety of the Escalade.
Marcus Vance stood alone in the headlights.
His hands were trembling on the head of his cane.
"This isn't over, Declan," the old man snarled through clenched teeth.
Declan stepped into Marcus's personal space.
He reached out and tapped Marcus’s chest with two stiff fingers.
"It is over on this dock," Declan said.
"If I see Julian within ten miles of Norah Jenkins again,"
"I won't call the tugboats."
"I'll come to your house on Astor Street myself."
Declan turned his back on the patriarch of Cook County.
He walked back up the gangway to the yacht.
He gathered Clara into his arms, lifting the nineteen-year-old girl effortlessly against his chest.
May you like
He looked down at Norah, whose face was illuminated by the brilliant white searchlights.
"Let's go home," he said.
