Chapter 1 - The Blood on the IceThe frost bit through Nora Wick’s thin boots like needle-point ice, but the cold was nothing compared to the sudden, breathless silence that fell over her heart.
“Your father did not die in an accident.”
The words hung in the sub-zero air between them, sharp and jagged. Silas Cade—the undisputed crime sovereign of Ironwood Bay—lay sprawled on the dark, cracked harbor ice, his silver-streaked hair matted with dried blood. His two giant mastiffs, Thor and Shadow, whined faintly, their massive bodies shivering against the relentless coastal gale.
Across the snow-swept pier, fifty yards away, a black SUV idled softly. Its tinted window was rolled down just an inch, the tiny red light of a smartphone recording light glinting like a predator's eye in the dark.
"Who are they, Silas?" Nora demanded, her hand trembling as she cut through the thick hemp rope binding his ankles. Her small, dull paring knife—the same one she used to cut lemons at the Harborlight Diner—scraped against his boots with a metallic screech. "Who put you here?"
Silas grunted as the rope snapped, relieving the circulation in his legs. His eyes, dark and piercing despite his faded color, locked onto hers. "Men who thought they could inherit a kingdom before the king was dead. Drag me to the shed, Nora. Unless you want them to turn that camera into a gun."
Nora didn't hesitate. Anger, hot and volatile, overwhelmed her fear. She threw Silas’s arm over her frail shoulders. He weighed nearly two hundred pounds of solid muscle and frozen wool, but adrenaline turned her legs to steel. With the two shivering mastiffs trailing slowly behind them, she hauled the most feared man on the Maine coast toward her late father’s abandoned fishing shed at the edge of Dock Seven.
They burst through the heavy oak door just as the black SUV let out a low rumble and accelerated away down the icy pier.
Inside the shed, the air smelled of dry pine, rust, salt, and faded memory. Nora shoved Silas down onto a stack of folded canvas sails. He collapsed back with a ragged breath, coughing up a streak of red onto the floor.
Nora slammed the bolt shut, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She grabbed an old kerosene lantern, lit it with a striking match, and turned to face the monster sitting in her father’s sanctuary.
"Talk," she hissed, pointing the bloody paring knife directly at his throat. "My father dived into freezing water to save men like you. The police said his boat’s fuel line burst. They said he was reckless. Tell me what happened, Silas, or I swear to God I'll drag you right back onto that harbor ice."
Silas didn't flinch at the blade. Instead, a faint, sinister shadow of a smile touched his frozen lips. He reached into his coat pocket with stiff fingers, pulled out a tarnished metal object, and tossed it to her feet.
It hit the floorboards with a dull metallic clink.
Nora looked down. It was a brass pocket watch, burned at the edges, engraved with the initials: C.W.
Her breathing stopped.
"That was your father's," Silas rasped, his voice sounding like grinding stones. "He didn't drown because of a broken fuel line, girl. He was executed. And the man who ordered his death is sitting in the Mayor’s office right now."
May you like
Before Nora could process the devastating claim, a sudden, heavy shatter exploded through the front window of the shed. Glass rained down like diamond dust, followed by the metallic hiss of a tear-gas canister rolling across the floorboards.
The hunt for Ironwood Bay had just begun.
