Chapter 12 - Terminal 4The wind howling off Lake Michigan carried the sharp, biting scent of brine and diesel fuel.
Terminal 4 was a labyrinth of rusted shipping containers stacked four high, creating narrow, shadowed canyons of corrugated steel. In the center lane, two large semi-trucks sat with their engines idling, headlights cutting through the swirling gray fog.
Bobby Vance—a heavy-set man with slicked-back blond hair and his uncle’s cold, dead eyes—stood beside the flatbed, shouting orders at six armed thugs who were frantically loading wooden crates marked Medical Supplies.
"Move faster, you idiots!" Bobby snarled, waving a heavy gold-plated pistol in the air. "The feds will be here in twenty minutes. If we don't clear these crates, we're all going away for twenty years!"
CLANG.
The sharp metallic echo bounced off the steel walls of a nearby container.
Bobby froze, raising his pistol toward the darkness. "Who's there?"
From the shadows atop a stack of twelve-foot containers, a heavy spotlight snapped on, bathing Bobby and his men in blinding, brutal white light.
Damen Moretti stood at the edge of the container roof, his hands casually tucked into his pockets, looking down like a judge preparing to pass a final sentence.
"Looking for something, Bobby?" Damen's voice carried across the yard with chilling clarity.
"Moretti!" Bobby screamed, spinning around and firing three wild shots into the air. "Kill him! Kill him now!"
The four thugs scrambled for cover, raising their submachine guns. But before they could pull the triggers, the opposite end of the lane erupted.
Marco Bell and six of Damen’s elite security operatives stepped out from behind a stack of containers, their tactical weapons raised with terrifying, disciplined precision.
"Drop the iron," Marco ordered, his voice cutting through the wind. "Or we turn that truck into a sieve."
Bobby's men looked around wildly, realized they were completely boxed in, and slowly dropped their weapons to the asphalt with a metallic clatter.
Bobby, however, backed up against the side of the semi-truck, his face contorted in sheer panic. He raised his gold-plated pistol and pointed it straight at Damen, who had dropped down effortlessly from the container roof into the middle of the asphalt lane.
"It ends here, Damen!" Bobby shrieked, his finger tightening on the trigger. "You take everything my family built, and you think you walk away?"
He fired.
The shot cracked through the cold night air—not at Damen, but toward the armored transport parked thirty yards away.
Clang.
The bullet struck the heavy steel door of the van—right where Hannah was sitting inside, watching through the reinforced glass.
Damen’s expression didn't just harden; it went dead. The last trace of human warmth vanished from his gray eyes, replaced by an absolute, terrifying void.
In a movement too fast for the human eye to track, Damen drew his Sig Sauer, raised it, and fired a single shot.
The bullet caught Bobby’s wrist. The gold-plated pistol flew into the air, spinning away across the wet asphalt as Bobby shrieked in agony, clutching his shattered hand.
Marco and his men swarmed the yard, zip-tying the remaining thugs in seconds.
Damen didn't look at Bobby. He walked straight past him, his boots crunching on the gravel, and pulled open the door of the armored transport.
Hannah sat inside, breathing heavily, her hands clenched in her lap.
"Are you hit?" Damen asked, his voice rough and breathless as he scanned her face for any sign of injury.
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"I'm fine," Hannah whispered, reaching out to grab his sleeve. "I'm completely fine."
Damen pulled her out of the van, folding her into his arms right there in the middle of the freezing shipping yard, shielding her from the sight of the blood and the broken men.
