Chapter 12 - THE MIDNIGHT DOCKS IN QUEENSThe abandoned shipping docks in Queens looked like a graveyard of rotting steel and black water. The rain began to fall just as Adrian’s armored SUV pulled into the rusted pier, the headlights cutting through the heavy fog rolling off the East River.
Adrian had insisted on bringing a full tactical backup team, stationed three hundred yards away with sniper rifle coverage and encrypted comms. But as we stepped out of the vehicle into the freezing drizzle, we were entirely on our own.
I clutched the rusted iron key tightly in my coat pocket. Adrian walked beside me, his hand resting casually near the custom firearm holstered beneath his tailored black coat. His eyes scanned every shadow, every dangling crane, and every rusted shipping container.
"Stay behind me," Adrian instructed quietly.
"I can handle myself, Adrian," I replied, keeping pace with him.
"I know you can," he murmured, glancing down at me with a rare, tender look amidst the gloom. "That’s why I love you. But as long as I’m breathing, you will never walk into the dark alone."
We reached the center of the pier, where an old, half-collapsed warehouse stood beneath a towering crane. Painted in peeling white letters across the metal door was a single word: AVERNUS.
The same name from the subterranean chemical plant years ago. The Kanes’ and the Vances’ shared history of sin.
The heavy sliding door of the warehouse stood ajar, glowing with a dim, yellow work light from within.
Adrian stepped forward, kicked the door wide open with his boot, and drew his weapon, sweeping the room in one fluid, practiced motion.
"Come on in, cousin!" a voice echoed from the cavernous darkness inside. "I was wondering if the great Adrian Kane would actually show up for a family reunion!"
Stepping out from behind a towering stack of wooden crates was a man who looked remarkably like Julian Vance—except leaner, older, and with eyes that burned with unhinged desperation. It was Marcus Vance Jr., Julian’s estranged older brother, who had spent the last decade operating in the shadows of European syndicates while his family fought and lost their empire in New York.
"Marcus," Adrian said, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper as he kept his gun trained dead-center on the man’s chest. "You should have stayed in Geneva."
"And missed the execution of the Morgan-Kane dynasty?" Marcus sneered, spreading his arms wide. "I don't think so. You took everything from my family, Adrian. You stripped us of our name, our assets, and our territory. But you forgot one very important detail."
Marcus’s eyes shifted past Adrian, locking directly onto me.
"You never bothered to check who put the debt on Elena’s first husband's shoulders," Marcus purred.
My breath hitched. I stepped out from behind Adrian. "What are you talking about? David left us. He abandoned us!"
Marcus laughed—a high, sharp sound that echoed off the metal walls. "Abandoned you? Oh, sweet, naive Elena. David didn't run away. He tried to blow the whistle on Arthur Morgan’s illegal toxic dumping in the slums back in 2018. He found out the truth about the contamination."
The world seemed to stop spinning.
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"What... what happened to him?" I whispered, my voice breaking.
"Your beloved first husband was a liability," Marcus said, stepping closer into the yellow light. "My uncle Julian didn't kill him. Arthur Morgan did. And your current husband’s father had him quietly buried right beneath the very foundations of the slums you used to clean."
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