Chapter 7 - The Extraction
When the Suburban’s rear doors swung open at the southern ramp, the smell of cordite, pulverized concrete dust, and river slime poured into the cabin.
Two of Cormac’s operatives carried Sable Calloway up the metal ramp. Wren’s younger sister looked like a specter—her blonde hair matted with black industrial grease, her oversized vintage cardigan shredded at the sleeves, her eyes wide and glassy with the pure, animal terror of someone who had looked down into the dark water of a pump pit and felt the steel cage slipping under her boots.
“Wren!” Sable shrieked, collapsing onto the leather bench across from her sister. “Wren, oh God, Wren!”
Wren caught her, pulling Sable into her arms despite the agony that ripped through her own stitched thigh as Sable’s knees slammed into the ottoman. Wren buried her face in her sister’s neck, weeping silently, her hands frantically checking Sable’s arms, her ribs, her face for bullet wounds.
“You’re safe,” Wren choked out, kissing Sable’s hair. “You’re okay. It’s over. Sable, look at me, you’re okay.”
“He was going to drop me,” Sable babbed, her teeth clicking violently. “He had the torch, Wren. The floor just fell away under our feet, the whole building broke in half, and he fell... the iron came down and he just...”
“Don't look back,” a voice commanded from the rain.
Cormac stepped into the light of the vehicle’s interior.
His wool sweater was torn at the shoulder, revealing a long, bloody graze where a high-velocity fragment had sliced through the wool. His face was streaked with soot and river silt, and his knuckles were split and red. In his right hand, he held a sodden, leather-bound notebook—Julian Delacroix’s personal ledger of municipal payoffs.
He tossed the ledger onto the floor between Wren and Sable. It landed with a wet, heavy slap.
“Julian’s car had this in the glove box,” Cormac said, looking at Wren. “It lists the safe deposit boxes in Baton Rouge, the account numbers in the Caymans, and the direct wire transfers to District Judge Vane.”
Wren looked from the ledger to Cormac’s face. She saw the blood on his shoulder. “You’re hit.”
“It’s a scratch,” he said dismissively. He turned to Teague, who stood in the downpour behind him, wiping rain from his assault rifle. “Torches on Berth Nine. Burn the interior staging area. I want every weapon, every casing, and every trace of our entry turned to slag before the harbor police finish their coffee.”
“Understood,” Teague said, turning toward the warehouse.
“Wait,” Sable whispered, looking up at Cormac with wide, terrified eyes. She shrank back against Wren’s shoulder. “Who... who is he, Wren? What did you do?”
Wren looked at Cormac.
He was standing half in the light of the vehicle, half in the darkness of the Louisiana night. He was everything civilization claimed it abhorred: an instrument of extralegal violence, a man who measured life and death by leverage, a kingpin whose empire was built on the silent, terrifying realities of force.
And yet, as he looked at her through the rain, his gaze was the only thing in the entire city that had not yielded under pressure.
“He’s the man who retired your debt, Sable,” Wren said, her voice steadying. “Now sit back and let the doctor look at you.”
Cormac stepped into the Suburban, pulling the door shut behind him with a heavy, pressurized seal. The interior light flickered off, plunging them into the green tactical glow of the dashboard. He sat on the bench opposite the two sisters, his long legs nearly touching Wren’s uninjured knee.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a clean linen handkerchief, and leaned across the narrow space between them.
Wren did not pull away.
With slow, deliberate care, Cormac lifted the handkerchief and wiped a smear of soot from Wren’s cheekbone. His touch was shockingly gentle, his fingers brushing against her skin with a reverence that seemed entirely at odds with the weapon resting on the floor beside his boots.
“Your leg is bleeding again,” he noted quietly, his eyes dropping to the dark stain spreading through the fresh bandage on her slacks.
“It holds,” she said, her slate-gray eyes meeting his without blinking.
May you like
“We’ll see about that when Pelletier gets another needle into you,” Cormac said. But he didn't pull his hand away. He let his thumb rest against the curve of her jaw for one second longer before shifting back into his seat. “Driver. Prytania Street. And drive like you value your employment.”
***
