Chapter 7 - COLD TRUTHS
I stepped out from behind the steel pillar into the harsh glare of the halogen lights.
"Here's your answer, Vance," I said, holding the silver pocket watch high in my left hand.
Vance leaned over the railing, his eyes narrowing greedily. "Smart man, Vincent. Toss it up."
"Come down and get it," I answered.
At that exact moment, the main circuit breaker of Pier 9 blew out with a deafening pop.
Paulie had done his job.
The warehouse was instantly plunged into pitch-black darkness.
"Fire! Shoot them!" Vance roared from the catwalk, his voice cracking with panic.
Muzzle flashes strobed through the frozen blackness like jagged lightning bolts, the deafening cracks of automatic gunfire shattering the silence. Sparks showered from the steel girders as bullets ricocheted wildly into the rafters.
"Khloe, go!" I yelled over the din.
I dropped to one knee, tracking the muzzle flashes on the catwalk above. Two rapid shots from my weapon silenced the guard to Vance’s right; he fell over the railing, crashing onto the frozen pallets below with a sickening thud.
Through the intermittent strobes of gunfire, I saw Khloe sprinting across the open floor.
She didn't hesitate. She didn't flinch as bullets tore through the plastic curtains around her. She dove toward the milk crate, threw her arms around the trembling boy, and shielded his small body with her own back.
"Auntie Khloe!" a small, terrified voice cried out through the chaos.
"I've got you, baby, I've got you!" she sobbed, gathering the boy into her arms and scrambling toward the cover of the heavy ammonia compressor.
"Julian, you idiot, grab the kid!" Vance screamed from above.
In the chaotic gloom, Julian had managed to wriggle his hands free from the poorly tied ropes. But instead of helping his son, instead of running to protect Khloe, Julian lunged across the concrete toward where I had dropped the pocket watch.
He didn't care about the boy. He only cared about the magnetic keycard.
"It's mine!" Julian shrieked, his fingers clawing at the concrete. "The whole harbor is mine!"
I stepped out of the shadows, planting my heavy boot directly onto Julian’s outstretched wrist.
The bone creaked beneath my sole.
Julian wailed in agony, curling into a ball on the frozen floor. "Vincent! Please! I'm your brother! Blood is thicker than water!"
"You burned that bridge five years ago, Julian," I said, looking down at the broken man who shared my father's face. "And you just sold your four-year-old child to a monster."
Before I could reach down to haul him up, a shadow separated from the darkness behind me.
Victor Vance had dropped from the emergency access ladder.
A heavy iron pipe slammed into my right shoulder, sending a shockwave of agonizing pain down my arm. My gun was knocked from my grip, skittering across the slick ice.
I staggered back against a wooden crate, my vision swimming with red stars.
Vance stood over me, his face twisted into a feral grimace, his silver revolver leveled straight at my forehead.
"End of the line, Costa," Vance hissed, his thumb pulling back the hammer. "Your empire dies tonight."
Suddenly, a loud, piercing crack echoed through the chamber.
Not a gunshot.
The sound of shattering glass.
Khloe stepped out from the side of the compressor. In her hands, she held a heavy, jagged half of an industrial emergency fire lantern. With all the strength in her slender body, she hurled the heavy steel casing directly into the side of Vance’s face.
The impact tore a gash across his cheek, throwing his aim off just as he pulled the trigger.
The bullet whistled past my ear, embedding itself in the wooden crate behind my skull.
The split-second distraction was all I needed.
I drove my left fist upward into Vance’s throat, followed by a crushing right hook to his jaw. Vance collapsed backward onto the frozen concrete, his gun flying into the darkness. He groaned once, rolled onto his stomach, and went completely limp.
The warehouse suddenly flooded with warm, steady light as Paulie and four armed men kicked open the main freight doors, high-powered tactical floodlights turning the shadows into daylight.
"Clear! Warehouse is secure!" Paulie’s voice boomed.
I stood panting, my bruised shoulder throbbing, my knuckles raw and bleeding.
Julian was cowering beneath a forklift, weeping uncontrollably.
A few feet away, Khloe was sitting on the cold floor, cradling Leo against her chest. She had wrapped her torn beige trench coat completely around him, rocking him back and forth.
The boy looked up from his aunt's shoulder, his huge blue eyes blinking against the bright floodlights. He saw me standing there, bruised, bleeding, and imposing.
He didn't shrink away.
Instead, he reached out one tiny, chubby hand from beneath the blanket. Clutched in his little fingers was the small wooden boat I had fished out of the gutter on 4th Street.
"Did you fix my boat, mister?" Leo asked softly, his little voice trembling but clear.
The icy walls that had surrounded my heart for forty years cracked wide open.
May you like
I knelt down on the frozen concrete until I was eye level with the child. I took the small wooden boat from his hand, inspected the crude blue paint, and handed it back to him with a gentle nod.
"It's fixed, Leo," I said, my voice softer than anyone in my organization had ever heard it. "And nobody is ever going to break it again."
