Chapter 8 - INTO THE LION'S DEN
Pier 42 was a rotting testament to the city's industrial past. Rain poured from the black sky, soaking Cassidy to the bone as she walked through the rusted gates. She clutched the flash drive in her pocket, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
Inside a cavernous, leaky warehouse, Harrison Vane stood flanked by six armed mercenaries. Tied to a chair in the center of the room was her mother, looking pale and terrified.
"Mom!" Cassidy cried out, running forward, but a guard stepped in her path, shoving her back.
"Ah, the prodigy arrives," Vane sneered. "Do you have the data?"
"Let her go first," Cassidy demanded, trying to sound brave, though her voice shook.
Vane laughed. "You are in no position to negotiate. Give me the drive, and perhaps I'll let you both live long enough to watch Duca burn."
Cassidy pulled the drive from her pocket. She held it out. As Vane reached for it, a sudden, deafening explosion rocked the warehouse. The heavy steel doors on the far side of the building blew completely off their hinges, flying into the air amid a ball of fire.
Through the smoke and flames walked Alessandro Duca.
He was not wearing a bespoke suit. He was wearing tactical gear, carrying an assault rifle, and looking like the grim reaper himself. Behind him poured a dozen of his most lethal men.
"You didn't think I'd let you leave without an escort, did you, cara?" Alessandro's voice echoed through the warehouse, cold and commanding.
Cassidy gasped. "How did you know?"
"I put a tracker on your phone the day I hired you," he said smoothly. He raised his rifle, aiming directly at Vane. "It's over, Harrison."
Vane panicked, grabbing a pistol from his waist and aiming it at Cassidy's mother. "Drop the weapons, Duca! Or she dies right now!"
Time seemed to slow down. Cassidy screamed.
A single, suppressed gunshot echoed from the rafters.
Vane's hand exploded in a mist of red. He dropped the gun, screaming in agony. High above, Giovanni lowered his sniper rifle from a catwalk.
"Take them," Alessandro ordered.
May you like
The firefight lasted less than thirty seconds. Vane's mercenaries, outgunned and outmatched by the Duca syndicate's sheer ruthlessness, dropped their weapons and surrendered.
Alessandro didn't look at them. He walked straight to Cassidy, dropping his rifle, and pulled her into a crushing embrace. "You stupid, brave girl," he breathed against her neck. "Never run from me again."
