Chapter 4 - The Altar of Deceit
The dock erupted into chaos.
Tracers cut through the sea mist in violent red streaks, chipping concrete and punching through metal barrels with deafening clatter. Dominic grabbed the collar of my tactical jacket with iron fingers, shoving me behind a heavy stack of steel ingots as a volley of rounds shredded the wooden crate where Kroll’s body lay.
“Beatrice! Stay down!” Dominic commanded.
He didn't crouch; he leaned around the steel stack, firing with mechanical precision. Two men running toward the gantry collapsed into the dark water with muffled splashes. From across the yard, Gabriel’s perimeter teams swept forward, their synchronized fire systematic, ruthless, and overwhelming.
Crowe was pinned behind the heavy tires of the container forklift, cursing violently as ricochets sparked off the chassis. He leaned out, spraying a drum magazine toward our position. Concrete dust stung my eyes.
“Crowe!” Dominic shouted over the roar of the freighter’s diesel. “Marcus sold you out! He gave me the manifest three hours ago!”
“You’re a liar!” Crowe screamed back, his voice high with the panic of a trapped beast. “Marcus wants you dead more than I do! You ruined his father’s dock deals! You took his seat at the table!”
“And yet, I’m the one holding the bills,” Dominic said coldly.
Dominic signaled to Gabriel with three raised fingers. Across the yard, a high-caliber sniper rifle cracked from the cab of an overhead crane. The forklift’s rear tire detonated with a thunderous pop, dropping the machine onto its axle and exposing Crowe’s right leg.
Crowe shrieked in pain as a round shattered his kneecap. He tumbled onto the rain-slicked asphalt, his submachine gun skittering across the pier into Dominic’s path.
Dominic walked forward, his boots ringing on the wet ground. The dock had gone dead silent. The twenty-four dockhands and guards lay scattered across the concrete or pinned against the pier railing with Gabriel’s rifles at the back of their necks.
Dominic stopped five feet from where Crowe lay groaning, clutching his ruined leg.
“Where is Vivienne?” Dominic asked, the barrel of his Glock pointed directly at the bridge of Crowe’s broken nose.
Crowe glared up through sweat and rain, coughing up dark phlegm. “Go to hell, Dominic. She’s at the Drake Hotel, having her hair done for your funeral. She hates your guts. She’s hated you since the day you made her father beg for his riverfront permits.”
“I know,” Dominic said softly. “That was never a mystery to me.”
I stepped out from behind the steel stack, my hands shaking as I held the tablet. “Dominic,” I called out, my voice cutting through the wind. “The shipping manifests on the freighter bridge... they’re uploading to the city server. Marcus’s digital signature is stamped on the port clearance forms. We have him tied directly to the illegal arms import.”
Dominic didn't look back at me, but I saw the subtle drop of his shoulders—the grim satisfaction of an executioner whose paperwork was finally in order.
“Gabriel,” Dominic said.
“Sir?”
“Put Elias in the back of car four. Elena can bandage his knee enough to keep him conscious. I want him breathing when we arrive at Holy Name Cathedral.”
“And the cargo?”
“Burn the ship,” Dominic said flatly. “Leave the crates on the pier for the federal marshals to find at six in the morning. When the news hits the wires, Marcus will realize his supply line is cut, but he won't know where the strike came from.”
Dominic turned back to me. His face was streaked with soot and mist, his dark hair plastered against his forehead by the November rain. He walked over, reaching out with his bare hand to wipe a smear of concrete dust from my cheekbone. The touch was surprisingly gentle, a shocking contrast to the carnage lying around us.
“You did well, Beatrice,” he said quietly. “Your father would have been proud of that nerve.”
May you like
“I’m still terrified,” I confessed, my heart beating so hard against my ribs I thought the tactical vest would snap.
“Good,” Dominic murmured, his fingers lingering on my jaw for a fraction of a second before dropping away. “Fear keeps you sharp. Now we have a wedding to attend.”
