Chapter 7 - War in the City
The abandoned brick warehouses on the South Side docks rose like dark, skeletal monoliths against the stormy Chicago skyline. Waves from Lake Michigan crashed against the concrete seawall, sending up cold plumes of spray that tasted of salt and oil.
Inside Warehouse 4, a single halogen worklight hung from a rusted rafter, casting a harsh yellow glare over a circle of damp concrete.
Nora sat tied to a wooden chair, her hands bound behind her back with plastic zip ties. Her face was pale, but her chin was lifted high, her dark eyes glaring at the three men standing in front of her.
Sean O’Connell, the surviving head of the Irish crew, paced back and forth across the floor, a snub-nosed revolver dangling loosely from his right hand.
“Shut your mouth, little lady,” Sean sneered, wiping rain from his forehead. “Your little mafia sugar daddy isn't going to save you. By the time Dominic Kane navigates his armored convoy through our perimeter mines, you’ll already be sleeping with the fishes.”
“Dominic is going to take apart everything you built,” Nora said, her voice remarkably steady. “You think hiding in a warehouse makes you safe? He owns this city.”
Before Sean could raise his hand to strike her, the heavy corrugated iron doors at the front of the warehouse exploded inward with a deafening screech of rending metal.
CRASH.
A black armored Mercedes smashed through the doors, its headlights cutting blinding swaths through the rain and dust.
Before the car even came to a complete halt, the passenger doors flew open.
Dominic Kane stepped out into the rain.
He didn't wear a raincoat. His charcoal suit was instantly soaked, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, his suppressed Glock held low and steady in his right hand. Behind him, Marcus and Dante poured out of a second vehicle, weapons drawn, sweeping the upper catwalks with lethal precision.
“Sean!” Dominic’s voice boomed across the cavernous warehouse, cold and absolute as winter ice. “Let her go.”
Sean O’Connell spun around, grabbing Nora by the hair and pressing the cold barrel of his revolver against her temple. “Back off, Kane! Drop the gun or I scatter her brains across this floor right now!”
Dominic stopped twenty feet away. He didn't drop his weapon. He raised it slowly, leveling the barrel squarely between Sean O’Connell’s eyes.
“You can try,” Dominic said softly. “But before your finger pulls that trigger, Marcus will put three rounds through your chest, Dante will take out your sniper on the catwalk, and I will personally spend the next forty-eight hours skinning your remaining crew alive.”
Sean’s hand trembled. He looked up at the catwalks and saw the laser dots of Dante and Marcus’s rifles dancing across his men’s chests.
“You’re a monster,” Sean choked out, panic creeping into his voice.
“No,” Dominic said, taking a slow step forward. “I’m the cleanup crew.”
With a lightning-fast movement, Dominic fired.
The suppressed pop of the Glock was swallowed by the roar of thunder outside. The bullet caught Sean O’Connell’s gun-hand wrist, shattering the bone and sending the revolver clattering uselessly against the concrete.
Before Sean could scream, Marcus closed the distance like a freight train, slamming the syndicate boss into the brick wall with a sickening thud.
Dominic didn't look at the defeated men. He dropped his pistol back into its holster, sprinted across the concrete floor, and knelt beside Nora.
With a swift flick of his pocketknife, he sliced through the plastic zip ties binding her wrists.
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Nora gasped, rubbing her bruised arms, and looked up into his face. For a second, the tough exterior cracked, and she threw her arms around his neck, burying her face against his chest as the terrifying adrenaline finally gave way to relief.
Dominic held her tightly, burying his face in her dark hair, his strong arms trembling slightly as he realized how close he had come to losing her.
