Chapter 8 - RIVER OF FIRE
"They have six rifles covering the catwalk," Lorenzo muttered, checking his last magazine—seven rounds left. "And Dante is cut off outside the north wall."
"We don't need the catwalk," Evelyn whispered rapidly, pointing down through the gap in the concrete pilings. "Look under the slip overhang. That's a twin-engine fiberglass work skiff tied to the lower mooring rings. And look at what's sitting on the floating pontoon right between us and their trucks."
Lorenzo looked down at the four rusted fifty-gallon drums labeled DANGER — MARINE METHANOL / SOLVENT.
A slow, ferocious glint lit Lorenzo’s gray eyes.
"Does the skiff have an ignition key?" he asked.
Evelyn held up the brass swallow key 412—still attached to its rusted iron split ring, which held a second, stubby black rubberized marine starter plug she hadn't looked twice at earlier.
"My father hid the ledger in the locker above his escape boat," she breathed. "They caught him before he could untie the bowline."
Above them, footsteps crunched on the wooden planks as Marco’s four tactical gunmen advanced in a semicircle, red laser dots sweeping across the rusted fuel drums.
"Twenty seconds, Lorenzo!" Celeste screamed from behind the blinding headlights of the lead SUV. "Burn him out, Marco! If that ledger leaves this building, we're both in federal prison by sunrise!"
"Get down onto the skiff under the piling," Lorenzo whispered against Evelyn’s ear, pressing the mason jar firmly into her hands. "Turn the battery switch on, prime the choke, and do not hit the starter until you hear my second shot."
"What about you?" she gasped, grabbing his lapel. "Lorenzo, you can't hold off six rifles with seven bullets!"
He looked at her in the dim red glow of the laser sights overhead. For one heartbeat, the chaos around them vanished. His bloodied hand cupped the side of her face, his thumb tracing her jawline with a rough tenderness that stole her breath.
"You saved my life at 8:55, Evelyn Carter," Lorenzo murmured. "I’m not dying at midnight. Get in the boat."
Evelyn scrambled down the slick iron ladder welded inside the concrete piling, dropping softly onto the fiberglass deck of the hidden skiff while keeping the glass jar tucked inside her jacket.
Her cold fingers fumbled across the center console in the dark until she found the battery master dial, twisting it to ON. She jammed the rubberized starter plug into the ignition slot.
Above her on the pier, Lorenzo didn't wait for the gunmen to reach the locker.
He kicked a heavy steel welding cylinder sideways down the concrete incline.
The hollow steel tank rolled clattering into the center of the catwalk. Two of the tactical gunmen reflexively swung their rifles toward the noise and opened fire.
Lorenzo rose from behind the concrete bulkhead and fired four rapid, surgical shots.
Two gunmen dropped into the black canal water.
The third spun and sprayed automatic fire across the lockers, pinning Lorenzo down as the man in the captain’s cap raised a heavy rifle toward Lorenzo’s flank.
From the north skylight fifty feet overhead, glass shattered—Dante had climbed the exterior fire ladder to the roof and fired a burst from his submachine gun down onto the pier, taking out the captain and shattering the windshield of Marco’s SUV.
Then Lorenzo aimed his final three rounds directly into the base of the pressurized methanol solvent drums on the central pontoon—and shot the sparking electrical junction box of the bilge pump directly beside them.
CRACK-WHOOSH.
Two hundred gallons of marine solvent ignited in a blinding wall of blue-and-orange flame that roared thirty feet into the rafters, cutting the pier completely in half and setting the dry timber catwalks ablaze.
As the shockwave rolled beneath the dock, Lorenzo vaulted over the concrete piling and dropped twelve feet straight onto the bow of the skiff beside Evelyn.
"Hit it!" Lorenzo shouted.
Evelyn twisted the starter key. The twin outboard engines coughed once, roared to life beneath the deafening thunder of the burning warehouse above, andLorenzo slashed the stern mooring rope with a diver's knife.
Evelyn jammed the throttle forward.
The skiff shot backward out from beneath the concrete overhang into the open South Branch canal just as the main roof timber above Slip 412 collapsed in a towering geyser of sparks.
On the burning pier behind them, cut off from the rear exit by the wall of flaming fuel, Marco Moretti and Celeste Vane scrambled backward toward their remaining SUV—only to find the gravel lot outside the front gate suddenly illuminated by twenty flashing red-and-blue light bars.
Not Chicago patrol cars.
Unmarked black Suburbans with gold federal seals on the doors, flanked by two Coast Guard cutters swinging searchlights across the canal.
Evelyn throttled down fifty yards out in the dark river channel, breathing hard, watching as federal agents in raid jackets swarmed the burning boatyard driveway, dragging a screaming, blood-faced Celeste Vane and a cursing Marco Moretti onto the wet gravel in steel handcuffs.
Evelyn turned slowly toward Lorenzo, who stood braced against the console, the orange glow of the fire reflecting in his storm-gray eyes.
"Wait," Evelyn panted. "We didn't call the FBI. How did the feds get here?"
Lorenzo reached into his inside suit pocket and pulled out Celeste’s cracked burner phone—the one he had picked up off the floor of The Obsidian three hours ago.
"While we were driving to Hinsdale to drop off Leo," Lorenzo said calmly, "I used the fingerprint sensor on that burner phone. Celeste didn't use a passcode; she used her own thumbprint, which she pressed neatly in red wine onto the corner of your cocktail napkin when she tried to brush you away from our table."
Evelyn stared at him, stunned. "You unlocked her phone with a wine smudge?"
"Latex lift off the glass," Lorenzo corrected mildly. "Inside her sent folder was the encrypted burner channel to Deputy Police Chief Miller and Marco’s DEA informant contact. I forwarded their live GPS coordinates at the boatyard and a snapshot of the first ledger page directly to the U.S. Attorney’s Special Prosecutions unit."
Evelyn looked at the mason jar resting safely between her feet. "Wait... the ledger implicates the Moretti shipping line from five years ago too."
"It implicates Marco Moretti Maritime," Lorenzo said, stepping closer to her as the boat rocked gently on the dark river wake. "Which I dissolved as a subsidiary of my holding company four months ago while auditing my brother’s death. As of tonight, every crooked cop, judge, and dock boss who touched your father's blood belongs to the federal government."
He looked down at her, his voice softening beneath the distant wail of sirens across the water.
"And The Obsidian belongs to me now, under the Vane forfeiture clause in our prenuptial contract."
Evelyn blinked up at him, shivering inside his oversized jacket. "You had a forfeiture clause in your engagement contract?"
May you like
Lorenzo’s mouth curved into a genuine, devastatingly warm half-smile.
"Evelyn," he said softly, wrapping his good arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his chest out of the wind. "Why do you think I agreed to get engaged to Arthur Vane’s daughter in the first place? I've been hunting my brother's killers for four years. I just didn't know they were going to pull the trigger five minutes before dessert—until a waitress with shaking hands gave me a napkin."
