Chapter 8 - The Dockside ReckoningRain and BloodThe heavy iron exit door led directly out onto the private wooden pier extending fifty yards into the dark, churning waters of Lake Michigan. Torrents of freezing rain hammered down from the black sky, soaking my hair and plastering my wool coat to my skin. In the distance, the skyline of Chicago glittered through the mist like a crown of jagged diamonds.
At the far end of the pier, backed against the wooden railing with nowhere left to run, stood Daniel Shaw.
Gabriel stood ten feet away from him, his gun raised, the barrel glistening with rain. Blood was dripping from a shallow cut on Gabriel’s forehead, but he didn't even flinch.
“End of the line, Daniel,” Gabriel’s voice cut cleanly through the howling wind and crashing waves.
Daniel laughed—a manic, desperate sound that was instantly swallowed by the storm. He held a small, glowing dead-man’s switch in his right hand. “You think you win, Gabriel? Look out across the bay.”
I stepped out onto the pier, clutching my stomach, the wind whipping around us. “It’s over, Daniel. Your accounts are frozen, your files are in our hands, and Connor Bell’s men abandoned you the second the feds got wind of this operation.”
Daniel’s eyes widened with genuine hatred as he looked at me. “You should have stayed in that river, Elena. If I had finished the job properly, none of this would have happened.”
“You didn’t finish it because you’re a coward,” Gabriel stepped forward, his finger tightening slightly on the trigger. “And now you pay the price.”
With a maniacal grin, Daniel’s thumb pressed down hard on the dead-man’s switch.
Click.
Nothing happened.
Daniel stared down at the small device in disbelief, pressing the button repeatedly. “No... no, that’s impossible! The C4 charges on the perimeter—!”
“Were deactivated ten minutes ago by my tech team,” a cool voice echoed from the shadows near the boat slips.
A sleek black speedboat pulled up silently against the wooden pilings. Stepping out from the cabin with a laptop in hand was Marcus, Gabriel’s oldest and most trusted tech expert—the one man Daniel had forgotten to eliminate.
Daniel dropped the useless switch into the dark water below. He spun around, reaching desperately for the holster beneath his arm, but Gabriel was already moving.
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A single, deafening gunshot rang out across the lake.
Daniel staggered backward, his boots slipping on the wet wooden planks of the pier, and tumbled over the railing into the dark, churning waves of Lake Michigan. He surfaced once, gasping for air against the freezing current, before the undertow dragged him under for good.
