Chapter 3 - Blood on the DocksThe rain hammered against the bulletproof windows of my armored SUV as Markus navigated the slick, industrial labyrinth of Pier 49.
My legs, locked inside heavy steel and carbon-fiber medical braces, felt heavy and foreign—like two blocks of lead bolted to my hips. For the first time in nearly three thousand days, my feet touched the floorboards of a vehicle instead of the footrests of a wheelchair. Every nerve ending in my calves was screaming, a hot, prickly pins-and-needles sensation that made my teeth grind.
Pain meant life. And I had never been more eager to feel it.
“We’re seventy-five yards out, boss,” Markus said, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Thermal scans show at least a dozen armed men inside Warehouse B. They’re expecting us, Caleb. It’s a killing floor.”
“Let them think they have the advantage,” I replied smoothly, sliding my right hand beneath my heavy wool coat to check the slide of my custom Sig Sauer P226. “Julian wants a reunion. We shouldn't keep an old friend waiting.”
We rolled to a halt in the shadows of a towering shipping crane. The warehouse door loomed ahead, rusted and slightly ajar, a sickly yellow beam of light spilling out onto the rain-slicked asphalt.
I took a deep breath, gripped the door handle, and forced my right foot out of the SUV.
Thud.
My boot hit the ground. My knee buckled slightly, sending a white-hot flash of agony up my spine, but I caught my weight on the door frame. I took a second breath, forced the left leg forward, and stood upright.
Standing. Fully upright. Taller than Markus, towering over the shadows.
Markus stared at me, his jaw slack. “Boss... you’re walking.”
“Focus, Markus,” I muttered through clenched teeth, sweat pouring down my temples as I took two agonizing, mechanical steps forward. “We move on my mark.”
We breached the side entrance with brutal efficiency. Markus took out the exterior sentry with a silenced drop, and we slipped into the cavernous belly of the warehouse. Towering stacks of shipping containers formed a labyrinth of rusted metal, smelling of salt water, diesel, and old blood.
At the center of the warehouse, beneath a solitary halo of flickering industrial lights, sat a single leather armchair.
And sitting in it, slowly twirling a glass of amber whiskey, was a man with the left side of his face wrapped in grotesque, puckered burn scars.
May you like
Julian Vance.
“Caleb,” Julian called out, his voice a gravelly whisper that echoed off the metal walls. He didn't bother standing up. He just raised his glass. “I was wondering when you’d finally drop the wheels and grow a spine.”
