Chapter 2 - SHADOWS OVER THE DOCKS
The engine of my custom V8 roared as I tore through the streets of Chicago, blowing through red lights and weaving between traffic like a madman. The windshield wipers slapped furiously against the heavy downpour, but all I could see was Alina’s handwriting in my mind.
Six years.
Six years of waking up in an empty mansion, drowning my grief in whiskey, believing the woman I loved had deemed me a monster and abandoned our life. Six years of trusting a viper who sat at my right hand, eating my bread and drinking my wine, while my wife and child lived in fear and poverty.
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, a roar of pure rage tearing from my throat.
My phone buzzed through the car's bluetooth. It was Viktor, my head of security and the only man in Chicago whose loyalty was absolute.
"Boss!" Viktor’s heavy Russian accent echoed through the speakers. "I’m at the orphanage with twenty men. The perimeter is locked down. Nobody gets within three blocks of little Sophia without getting turned into Swiss cheese."
"Good," I gritted out. "What about Matteo?"
"We tracked his cell signal," Viktor reported, the sound of heavy gunfire echoing faintly in his background—he was already taking out Matteo's perimeter scouts. "He took twelve cars to the abandoned meatpacking district near the south docks. Boss, he’s set up a perimeter. He knows you’re coming."
"Let him know," I snarled. "I’m ten minutes away. Do not engage his main force until I get there. Matteo belongs to me."
"Understood, Don Vitelli. God help him."
I cut the call and pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
Ten minutes felt like ten light-years. When I finally reached the southern edge of the lake, the rain was coming down in sheets. The shipping yards were a graveyard of rusted containers and decaying brick warehouses.
In the distance, a dark plume of smoke was rising into the gray sky despite the rain.
The warehouse was on fire.
Panicked terror gripped my heart. I pulled the car behind a row of shipping containers, grabbed a pair of tactical handguns and extra magazines from the secret compartment under the dashboard, and stepped out into the storm.
Silence hung heavy over the docks, broken only by the crackle of distant flames and the pounding rain. I moved like a phantom between the shadows, my senses dialed to absolute lethally sharp focus.
As I approached Warehouse 14, I saw four of Matteo’s men standing outside the main entrance, smoking cigarettes and laughing.
"Think the boss is gonna kill her himself?" one of them asked.
"Nah," another replied, spitting on the ground. "He said he wants her to suffocate slowly. Wants Marco to find nothing but ashes when he gets here."
A cold, lethal calm descended over me.
I didn't fire from a distance. I wanted them to feel the retribution.
I stepped out from behind a container. Before they could even raise their weapons, I closed the distance. My fist drove into the first man's throat, crushing his windpipe. I grabbed his falling rifle, swept the legs of the second man, and shot the third and fourth through the heart in less than two seconds.
The second man scrambled backward on the wet pavement, bleeding and terrified. "M-Marco! Please! We were just following orders!"
I stepped on his chest, pointing the gun straight between his eyes. "Where is she?"
"Inside... top floor office..." he gasped, coughing up blood. "Matteo... he's setting the fuel charges on the lower level!"
I didn't waste a bullet. A heavy kick to his temple knocked him cold.
I kicked open the heavy metal door of the warehouse and stepped into the inferno.
Black smoke billowed through the lower rafters. Flames were crawling up the wooden support beams, filling the air with blistering heat and the sharp stench of gasoline.
"MARCO!"
A voice echoed from the catwalk above.
I looked up through the haze of smoke. Standing on the iron railing of the upper platform was Matteo Rizzo. He looked pristine, dressed in his expensive charcoal suit, holding a detonator in his hand.
"I wondered how long it would take you to find this place," Matteo shouted down, his voice laced with mock affection. "Always so quick to play the hero, aren't you, my friend?"
"Matteo!" I yelled back, my voice cutting through the roar of the fire. "Where is my wife?!"
Matteo laughed—a dry, sinister sound that made my skin crawl. "Your wife? Ah, Marco. She was always so stubborn. I offered her a luxury life in Europe, you know. All she had to do was lie to you and stay quiet. But no... she kept trying to run back to her precious Don."
"You betrayed everything we built!" I took a step toward the iron staircase, but Matteo pointed a heavy revolver down at me.
"I didn't betray anything!" Matteo roared, his eyes wild with jealousy and greed. "I built the Vitelli empire! I did the dirty work while you played the benevolent king! You didn't deserve the throne, Marco! You didn't deserve the money, and you certainly didn't deserve her!"
"It was never about the business," I said coldly, slowly advancing up the steps, ignoring the heat searing through my boots. "You were my brother."
"I was your shadow!" Matteo yelled.
He suddenly pressed a button on the remote.
BOOM!
A massive explosion shattered the eastern wall of the warehouse. Iron beams twisted and crashed down, severing the staircase in front of me and throwing me backward into a stack of wooden crates.
My head slammed against the floor, vision spinning in white sparks. Coughing violently from the thick smoke, I forced myself to my feet.
"Goodbye, Marco!" Matteo's voice echoed from above. "Give my regards to Alina!"
He turned and bolted toward the back exit of the upper catwalk.
I ignored the agony in my ribs and sprinted toward the burning support columns. I grabbed a hanging iron chain, used the momentum to swing myself across the fire, and landed hard on the upper catwalk.
At the end of the corridor, inside a small, locked office surrounded by flames, I saw her.
Tied to an iron chair, blood trickling from a wound on her temple, was Alina.
Her eyes were weak, her breathing shallow, but as she saw me cutting through the smoke, her dark eyes widened in absolute shock and love.
May you like
"Marco..." she choked out through the smoke. "You... you came..."
"I told you six years ago," I smashed the lock off the door with three quick gunshots and burst into the room, kneeling beside her to slice the ropes with my tactical knife. "I will always find you."
