Chapter 3 - COLD RAIN AND HOT LEAD
The rain poured in relentless sheets.
It drummed against the black roof of the Maybach.
Red laser sights painted the wet pavement around our feet.
I froze.
My hand clutched the silver ring inside my coat pocket so tightly the metal bit into my palm.
Damian didn't duck.
He didn't run.
He grabbed the collar of my coat and shoved me down behind the heavy rear wheel of the Maybach.
“Head down,” he ordered.
His voice was flat.
Utterly devoid of panic.
The driver of the Maybach—a man with graying hair and scars on his knuckles—kicked open the front door.
He held a short-barreled shotgun.
“Boss!” the driver yelled.
“Luca, take the left flank,” Damian said.
The first rifle shot cracked through the storm.
It blew out the driver’s side mirror in an explosion of plastic and chrome.
Gunfire erupted from all three SUVs.
The noise was deafening.
It rattled my teeth in my skull.
Bullets hammered against the armored panels of the Maybach with heavy, metallic thuds.
The glass cracked into dense spiderwebs, but held.
Damian drew a black semi-automatic pistol from beneath his jacket.
He leaned around the rear bumper and fired four rhythmic shots.
Through the rain, I saw the headlights of the center SUV explode into sparks.
Two men in tactical vests collapsed into the mud.
“Get inside the car, Elena,” Damian commanded.
He opened the rear door from the outside, keeping his body between me and the shooters.
“Move!”
I scrambled across the leather seats, soaking wet, gasping for air.
The interior smelled of leather, cedar, and gunpowder.
Damian slid in right behind me, slamming the heavy door shut.
Luca threw the transmission into reverse.
The tires screamed against wet gravel.
The heavy car surged backward, smashing into the grille of the lead SUV.
Metal groaned and tore.
Luca spun the wheel violently, slamming the car into drive.
We blasted through the iron perimeter gates of the Ashcroft estate.
The wrought-iron hinges snapped like dry twigs.
We hit the dark winding highway at ninety miles an hour.
My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it over the roar of the twin-turbo engine.
I pressed my back against the leather seat, staring at the man beside me.
Damian was calmly ejecting his empty magazine.
He slid a fresh one in with a clean, sharp click.
He wiped a streak of rain from his cheek with the back of his hand.
“Are you hit?” he asked, looking at me.
“No,” I choked out.
My hands were shaking violently.
“Who were those men?”
“Mercenaries,” Damian replied. “On Rowan’s payroll.”
“My uncle owns shipping warehouses,” I said, my voice rising in disbelief. “He doesn't have private death squads!”
Damian looked at me with cold gray eyes.
“Your uncle hasn't run legitimate shipping in fifteen years, Elena.”
He leaned back against the headrest, closing his eyes for a brief moment.
“Your father found out.”
“Found out what?”
“That Rowan was using the family docks to smuggle military-grade hardware and dirty money for the southern syndicates.”
The words hit me like physical blows.
My mind raced back to my childhood.
The late-night arguments between my father and Rowan in the old brick garage.
My father yelling that he would never let blood money touch his daughter.
The sudden move to a small rented house in Queens.
The grease beneath my father’s fingernails.
“Rowan told everyone Dad failed,” I whispered.
Tears burned my eyelids.
“He told the entire family that Dad was a loser who couldn't handle the corporate pressure.”
“Your father walked away to keep his hands clean,” Damian said softly.
He opened his eyes and looked down at my hands.
“Take the ring out.”
I pulled my hand from my pocket and opened my fingers.
The silver band caught the green glow of the dashboard lights.
“Look inside the seam,” Damian instructed.
I held the ring closer to my eyes.
Beside the engraved word GAVIN, there was a microscopic notch.
Almost invisible to the naked eye.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a micro-key,” Damian said.
“Forged from titanium alloy. Your father was a master machinist.”
“What does it open?”
“A high-security vault beneath his old workshop in Red Hook.”
Luca glanced in the rearview mirror.
His face hardened.
“Boss,” Luca said quietly.
“Two cars coming up fast on our bumper. No headlights.”
Damian turned his head toward the rear window.
Through the rain-streaked tinted glass, I saw two low-slung black sedans closing the distance.
A red beacon suddenly pulsed beneath our rear bumper.
A magnetic tracker.
Before Luca could hit the brakes, the lead sedan rammed our rear quarter panel.
May you like
The Maybach spun out of control across the slick asphalt.
The world flipped upside down into screaming rubber, blinding headlights, and dark water.
