Chapter 6 - THE SALT DOCKS
The industrial pier at the southern edge of Lake Michigan was an iron wasteland.
Rusted gantry cranes stood like towering skeletons against the black winter sky.
The lake was wild, throwing freezing spray twenty feet into the air against the concrete breakwater.
A single row of sodium floodlights hummed above Warehouse Fourteen.
Snow swirled through the orange beams in blinding sheets.
Amelia walked through the rusted chain-link gate alone.
Her boots crunched on the salt and gravel.
She wore Lorenzo’s heavy wool coat, its shredded back hidden beneath a dark rain poncho Leo had provided.
Her hands were buried deep in the pockets.
In her right palm, she clutched a tiny brass tracking beacon.
In her left, a compact .380 automatic pistol with the safety off.
Four men in heavy tactical parkas stepped out from behind a stack of blue shipping containers.
They carried short-barreled shotguns.
“Halt!” one shouted, leveling his weapon.
Amelia stopped five paces from them.
She pulled back the hood of the poncho, letting the harsh floodlights illuminate her bruised, soot-streaked face.
“Tell Victor I’m here,” she said.
Her voice was steady.
Cold.
The guard’s eyes widened.
“The runaway,” he muttered into his radio.
“Boss. She walked through the gate alone.”
A gate buzzer rasped.
The steel pedestrian door of Warehouse Fourteen groaned open.
Standing in the doorway was Victor Moretti.
Sixty years old.
Silver hair slicked back beneath a fur-lined fedora.
He wore a bespoke cashmere coat with a mink collar, holding a silver-tipped walking cane.
On his right pinky gleamed the gold signet ring: the serpent and the dagger.
“Amelia,” Victor purred, his voice like velvet over broken glass.
He stepped out onto the snowy loading dock.
“You look dreadful, my dear.”
“Where is Lorenzo?”
Amelia took two slow steps forward.
“He died in Evanston,” she lied.
“The dorm room exploded.”
“I was on the fire escape when the roof fell in.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.
He tilted his head, watching her every micro-expression.
“Did you see the body?”
“I saw three thousand pounds of burning brick drop onto his chest,” she snapped.
“Nobody walked out of that room, Victor.”
A slow, predatory grin spread across Victor’s wrinkled lips.
He threw his head back and laughed—a dry, rattling sound that was swallowed by the gale.
“The great Lorenzo Bianchi,” Victor chuckled.
“Taken out by an amateur charge in a freshman dorm.”
Victor pointed his silver cane at her.
“Search her.”
Two guards moved forward, grabbing Amelia’s arms.
They patted down her poncho.
One reached into her left pocket.
His fingers closed around the compact pistol.
He ripped it out, tossing it into the snow with a sneer.
“She was carrying, Boss.”
Victor clicked his tongue in mock disappointment.
“Naughty girl.”
“Did you think you were going to shoot your way out of my harbor?”
“Where is Mia?” Amelia demanded, refusing to lower her eyes.
Victor turned and walked back into the warmth of the warehouse.
“Bring her inside,” he ordered.
The guards shoved Amelia through the heavy steel door.
The interior smelled of damp concrete, motor grease, and old brine.
In the center of the vast, echoing space sat a rusted steel shipping container.
The heavy double doors of the container were chained with a padlocked log chain.
Standing beside the container was a small, shivering figure tied to a wooden chair.
Mia Bianchi.
Her dark hair was tangled, her eyes wide with terror.
A thick strip of gray duct tape covered her mouth, her wrists bound tightly to the chair legs with zip-ties.
When Mia saw Amelia, a muffled sob broke from behind the tape.
“Mia!” Amelia lunged forward.
A guard struck Amelia across the face with the flat of his forearm.
The blow sent her sprawling onto the frozen concrete.
Blood welled in the corner of her lip.
Victor stood over her, tapping his silver cane against the stone floor.
Tock. Tock. Tock.
“You were a good investment, Amelia,” Victor murmured.
“Your father owed me two million dollars when he died.”
“He thought he could pay it back by selling me your sister.”
Amelia’s head snapped up.
Her heart stopped beating.
“What did you say?” she whispered.
Victor smiled, showing gold crowns on his molars.
“Your sister Clara didn't die of leukemia in Boston, Amelia.”
“She ran away with one of my couriers twelve years ago.”
“Your father lied to you to keep you obedient.”
“He traded you to me the day you turned eighteen.”
The world seemed to tilt on its axis.
Every memory of her childhood—the medical bills, the sacrifice, the guilt that had haunted her for a decade—was a calculated lie.
Her father had sold her like cattle.
“You’re a monster,” Amelia breathed.
Victor reached into his coat and pulled out a heavy steel lighter.
He struck the wheel.
A three-inch yellow flame danced in the gloom.
“I am a businessman, Amelia.”
“And since Lorenzo is dead, your utility has expired.”
He looked toward the shipping container.
“The container is loaded with fifty barrels of industrial acetone.”
“Once I drop this lighter, the pier goes up in smoke.”
“The police will find two burned bodies.”
“The runaway bride.”
“And the mafia princess.”
May you like
Victor raised the lighter to throw it toward the open container doors.
Behind him, the reinforced steel roll-up door of the warehouse blew inward with the force of an anti-tank missile.
