Chapter 10 - THE SNIPER’S CROSSHAIRSBefore the sound of the gunshot even registered in the damp air, a high-caliber round tore through the corrugated tin roof, embedding itself an inch away from Aleandro’s boot with a deafening screech of twisted steel.
Ambush. Again.
"Down!" Aleandro roared, instantly tackling Viktor and the metal chair sideways onto the concrete floor just as a second bullet shattered one of the sodium-vapor lights overhead, plunging the container aisle into semi-darkness.
From the high catwalks twenty feet above, automatic gunfire erupted, chewing up the shipping containers in a lethal shower of sparks and metal shrapnel.
"Boss!" Mateo’s voice cracked over the tactical comms link tucked inside Aleandro’s ear. "We've got movement on the south gantry! Three unknowns, heavily armed with suppressed carbines! They bypassed the outer perimeter sensors!"
Aleandro scrambled behind the thick steel frame of Container 804, drawing his Sig Sauer in a single fluid motion. His mind raced with terrifying clarity. The sniper hadn't come to save Viktor; the sniper had come to silence him before he could drop the name of the traitor still hidden inside Moretti Holdings.
"Mateo, seal the perimeter gates!" Aleandro shouted into his comms, firing two blind shots toward the catwalk to suppress the shooter above. "Do not let anyone leave this pier alive! They want to play chess in the dark? We'll bury them in the dark!"
Across the concrete floor, Viktor was screaming in panic, still bound to the metal chair. "They're going to kill me! Untie me, Aleandro! Please!"
"Shut your mouth if you want to keep breathing!" Aleandro barked.
He didn't hesitate. Risking his life, Aleandro lunged forward across the open gap, grabbed the back of Viktor’s chair, and dragged the screaming man backward into the deep shadows behind a towering stack of steel crates just as a third bullet punched a smoking hole right where Viktor had been sitting a second earlier.
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Footsteps slammed against the iron stairs of the catwalk. The assassins were descending, closing in for the kill.
Aleandro pressed his back against the cold metal container, checking his magazine. Seven rounds left. In the mafia underworld, seven bullets were more than enough to start a war—or finish one.
