Chapter 6 - The Docks of Blood
The abandoned container terminal at Pier 54 smelled of saltwater, rotting fish, and high-octane diesel.
It was midnight. The rain had cleared, leaving behind a thick, choking fog that rolled in from the Hudson River, obscuring the towering rust-colored cranes that loomed like skeletal giants against the dark sky.
A sleek black helicopter idled on the far tarmac, its rotor blades kicking up a localized gale that whipped up the gravel.
Inside a rusted shipping container converted into an improvised interrogation room, four men stood in silence.
Viktor Petrov—a massive bear of a man with a jagged scar running from his ear to his collarbone—stood smoking a thick Cuban cigar. Bound to a steel folding chair in the center of the room was little Chloe. She wasn't crying; her big brown eyes were fixed stoically on the floor, clutching her damp cloth rabbit with white knuckles.
Standing beside Viktor was Marcus, Dante’s primary head of security, wiping nervous sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
“You said the girl would be an easy bargaining chip,” Marcus hissed, his voice cracking with panic. “Dante is already tearing through half the city looking for us! If he finds this pier—”
“Let him come,” Viktor laughed, exhaling a thick cloud of gray smoke. “For a year, the great Ghost of New York has hidden behind impenetrable glass and an army of mercenaries. But with his daughter here, he will walk into my trap alone. And when he kneels to beg, I will put a bullet through his brain and take the entire empire.”
“You won't have to wait long, Viktor,” a cold, flat voice echoed from the open doorway of the container.
Viktor whipped around. Marcus dropped his handkerchief.
Stepping out of the thick river fog, alone, was Dante Vance.
He wasn't wearing a suit tonight. He wore a black tactical turtleneck, cargo pants, and combat boots. In his right hand, he held a suppressed automatic rifle; in his left, a combat knife with a twelve-inch blade. His pale eyes glowed with an inhuman, murderous fury.
“Dante,” Viktor grinned, tossing his cigar aside and pulling a heavy nickel-plated revolver from his waistband. “You came all this way for a brat who won't even speak to you?”
“Let her go, Viktor,” Dante said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “This is between you and me.”
“Oh, it’s much more than that,” Viktor sneered, stepping behind Chloe and pressing the barrel of his revolver directly against the little girl’s temple. “Drop the rifle, Vance. On your knees. Or I scatter her brains across this floor right now.”
Dante stopped ten feet away. His gaze locked onto Chloe.
For a fleeting second, the invincible mafia boss looked entirely human—broken, terrified, and ready to trade his own soul to spare her life. He slowly began to lower himself onto his knees on the cold concrete.
Marcus smirked, stepping forward. “It’s over, Dante. You should have shared the shipping lanes.”
“You talk too much, Marcus,” a quiet voice called out from the shadows behind the container door.
Viktor and Marcus spun around—just in time to see a heavy steel shipping hook swing violently out of the fog, slamming directly into Marcus’s chest with the force of a wrecking ball. The traitorous lieutenant flew backward, crashing into a stack of empty pallets and passing out cold.
Stepping out from behind the container was Norah Hale.
In her hands, she didn't hold a gun. She held a modified industrial steam-press wand connected to a portable high-pressure canister strapped to her back, trailing a long, hissing hose.
“What the hell is this?!” Viktor roared, tightening his grip on Chloe’s head. “Kill her!”
Before Viktor’s remaining two guards could raise their submachine guns, Norah triggered the valve.
A massive, blinding plume of scalding superheated steam roared from the nozzle, filling the small container with a searing wall of white mist. The guards screamed, dropping their weapons as their skin blistered under the intense heat, tumbling backward out of the container into the mud.
Viktor cursed blindly, swinging his revolver toward the sound of the steam.
That microsecond of distraction was all Dante needed.
Like a striking viper, Dante lunged forward from his kneeling position. He didn't use his gun—he closed the distance in a blur of motion, slamming his forearm into Viktor’s wrist with a sickening crunch. The revolver flew from Viktor’s hand, clattering across the concrete.
Dante grabbed the Russian warlord by the throat, slamming his head against the steel wall of the container with enough force to dent the metal.
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“You touched my family,” Dante whispered, his voice dripping with venom.
Before Viktor could draw another breath, Dante’s combat knife flashed in the dim light.
