Chapter 2 - Pier 11
The South Boston shipping terminal was a graveyard of rusted iron and salt-rimed concrete.
At 3:45 a.m., there were no workers, no trucks, and no lights. The only sound was the rhythmic, hollow slapping of the dark harbor water against the wooden pilings of the pier. The rain had picked up, turning the gravel road into a treacherous soup of mud and oil runoff.
Mara killed her headlights two blocks before she reached the entrance to Pier 11.
She rolled down her window, letting the freezing, salt-heavy air fill the cabin of her car. She needed her senses sharp. She needed to hear before she was seen. She crawled the sedan forward, her tires squelching softly in the mud, until the massive silhouette of a derelict warehouse loomed out of the dark.
She stopped the car behind a stack of rotting wooden pallets.
She didn't have a weapon. She had her heavy brass flashlight—the one she kept in her glove compartment for roadside emergencies—and her phone, which was currently showing three missed texts from her supervisor. She ignored them.
She stepped out of the car, her sneakers sinking into the freezing mud. She pulled her coat tight around her neck and walked toward the warehouse, her flashlight kept low, its beam a narrow, cautious sliver on the ground.
The warehouse door was a massive sheet of corrugated metal, hanging off its tracks.
She slipped through the gap, her heart hammering against her ribs so loudly she was certain anyone inside could hear it. The interior smelled of diesel fuel, wet wood, and the sharp, coppery tang of fresh blood.
"Dante?" she whispered into the dark.
The echo of her own voice was her only answer.
She moved deeper into the warehouse, her flashlight beam scanning the floor. She saw the signs of a struggle first: several spent brass casings from a nine-millimeter handgun, a shattered wooden crate, and a dark, thick smear of blood that trailed toward the back of the building where a flight of wooden stairs led down to a service basement.
She followed the trail.
At the bottom of the stairs, the air was freezing and damp. The flashlight beam caught a figure slumped against a rusted boiler.
It was Dante.
His expensive charcoal suit was torn and soaked with black, greasy water. His white shirt was stained a brilliant, terrifying crimson on the left side of his chest, the fabric clinging to a jagged wound that was oozing blood with every shallow breath he took. His face was gray, his lips blue, his eyes closed.
"Oh my God," Mara gasped, dropping to her knees beside him.
She set her flashlight on the floor, its beam projecting up to illuminate the concrete ceiling. She reached out, her fingers trembling as she pressed them against his carotid artery. His pulse was there—thready, rapid, and incredibly weak.
"Dante, wake up," she said, gently slapping his cheek. "Dante, it's Mara. I'm here."
His eyelids fluttered open, his pupils dilated in the dim light. He stared at her for several seconds, his mind clearly struggling to pull itself out of the gray fog of shock.
"Mara?" he rasped, his voice barely a vibration. "You... you're a fool. I told you... no city cars."
"I didn't send them," she said, already unzipping her coat. She wore a thick wool sweater underneath. She grabbed the hem and ripped a wide strip of fabric from her undershirt, folding it into a thick pad. "I came alone. Now hold still. I need to apply pressure to this wound."
"No use," Dante muttered, his head rolling back against the cold iron of the boiler. "The lung... it's punctured. Every time I breathe... it fills."
"I'm an emergency dispatcher, Dante," Mara said, her voice hard and commanding, the tone she used when a caller was trying to give up. "I've talked thirty people through sucking chest wounds over the phone. I know exactly what a punctured lung looks like, and you're not there yet. But you will be if you don't let me stop this bleeding."
She pressed the folded pad of fabric directly against the wound.
Dante let out a sharp, choked cry of agony, his entire body convulsing as his hands flew up to grip her wrists. His fingers were like ice, but his grip was still remarkably strong, his knuckles white as he fought the pain.
"I know," Mara said, leaning her weight into her hands to keep the pressure steady. "I know it hurts. Breathe through it. Don't fight me."
"You... you shouldn't be here," Dante panted, his forehead resting against her shoulder, his breath hot and ragged against her neck. "They're... they're still searching the yard. If they find you..."
"Then we need to move," Mara said, looking up toward the stairs. "Can you stand?"
"No."
"Yes, you can," she said, her face level with his. "You told my son you were trying to stop making bad choices. Letting yourself bleed to death in a basement while your friends are looking for you is a very bad choice, Dante. Now, get up."
He stared at her, a faint, sudden spark of something—amusement, or perhaps just a stubborn refusal to die—flickering in his dark eyes.
"You're... a very bossy woman, Mara," he muttered.
"I have a five-year-old," she said, slipping her arm under his shoulder. "You're nothing compared to him. On three. One... two... three!"
With a low, guttural roar of pain, Dante pushed himself off the concrete floor. His legs buckled instantly, but Mara caught his weight, her shoulder digging into his armpit as she bore his bulk. He was easily eighty pounds heavier than her, his body solid muscle and dead weight, but she found a reserve of strength she didn't know she possessed.
They staggered up the wooden stairs, one agonizing step at a time. Dante's breath was a wet, rattling whistle in her ear, his blood soaking through her wool sweater, warm and sticky against her skin.
They reached the main floor of the warehouse and made it to the corrugated metal door when the headlights appeared.
A large, black SUV rounded the corner of the gravel road, its high beams sweeping across the front of the warehouse.
"Down," Dante hissed, his hand grabbing the back of her coat and pulling her behind a stack of rusted steel drums.
The SUV stopped fifty feet from the entrance. The doors opened, and two men stepped out into the rain. They were dressed in long, dark coats, their faces obscured by the shadows of their hats. They didn't look like street thugs; they carried the quiet, professional confidence of high-level enforcers.
"Check the basement again," one of them said, his voice carrying clearly over the sound of the rain. "If he's down there, finish it. The Don wants the ledger before morning."
Mara looked at Dante. He had reached into his wet jacket and pulled out a heavy, black semi-automatic pistol. His hand was shaking, the barrel of the gun wavering in the dark. He didn't have the strength to aim, let alone survive a shootout with two armed men.
She looked at her car, parked behind the rotting wooden pallets forty feet away.
She looked at the heavy brass flashlight in her hand.
"Dante," she whispered, her voice a tiny thread of sound. "When I tell you to run, you crawl to my car. The keys are in the ignition."
"What... what are you doing?" he whispered, his eyes wide with a sudden, sharp panic. "Mara, no—"
She didn't answer.
She stood up from behind the steel drums, turned her brass flashlight on, and threw it with all her strength toward the far corner of the warehouse.
The heavy metal flashlight hit a stack of empty glass bottles, sending them crashing to the concrete floor with a deafening shatter. The beam of the light spun wildly on the floor, illuminating the dusty air.
"Over there!" one of the enforcers shouted, his hand instantly reaching inside his coat.
Both men turned their attention toward the noise, their guns drawn as they moved cautiously into the deep shadows of the warehouse's eastern wing.
"Go," Mara hissed to Dante.
She grabbed him under his good arm and dragged him out of the warehouse door into the freezing rain. They ran—a halting, desperate, stumbling sprint—across the mud toward her sedan.
Dante fell once, his knees hitting the gravel, but he didn't let go of her shoulder. He dragged himself back up, his teeth gritted so hard a thin line of blood ran from his lip.
They reached the passenger side of the sedan. Mara threw the door open, shoved him into the seat, and slammed it shut. She ran around to the driver's side, jumped behind the wheel, and twisted the key.
The engine roared to life.
Behind them, a shout echoed from the warehouse. One of the enforcers had run to the door, his gun raised as he spotted the sedan’s taillights.
Crack. Crack.
May you like
Two sharp, loud reports split the night. The rear window of Mara's sedan shattered into a spiderweb of safety glass, several fragments spraying into the cabin.
Mara didn't scream. She threw the car into drive, slammed her foot onto the gas pedal, and spun the steering wheel. The tires gripped the mud, sending a massive shower of gravel behind them as the sedan roared out of the shipping terminal and into the dark, empty streets of South Boston.
