Chapter 2 - Blood in the Diner BoothDawn broke over Baltimore Harbor like a bruise—cold, grey, and unforgiving.
Inside the cramped, back-room apartment above The Rusty Anchor, Roland Vance regained consciousness. His body felt like it had been run over by a freight train—every rib cracked, his shoulder dislocated, his skull pounding with a symphony of pain. Yet, the raw survival instincts of a man who had ruled the underworld for two decades kept him instantly alert.
He sat up with a sharp intake of breath, his hand instinctively going for the holster beneath his left arm. It was empty. His custom Sig Sauer was gone, along with his encrypted satellite phone.
"You're awake. Good. Don't move too fast, unless you want those stitches to pop."
Roland whipped his head around, his eyes narrowing into lethal daggers. Standing by a small, grease-stained stove was a young woman with dark hair pulled into a messy bun, wearing an oversized flannel shirt. On the floor beside a makeshift cot made of old blankets, the massive ash-gray mastiff watched him with steady, intelligent eyes, while Buster gnawed on a bone in the corner.
"Who are you?" Roland's voice was a low, vibrating growl that commanded instant terror in boardrooms and back alleys alike. "Where is my phone?"
Clara didn't flinch. She set a steaming mug of black coffee and a bowl of cheap oatmeal on the wooden crate serving as a table. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and stared right back into his terrifying, storm-gray eyes.
"My name is Clara. You crashed your expensive car into a warehouse wall last night, and if it wasn't for Goliath here," she nodded toward the mastiff, "you’d be food for the harbor crabs right now. As for your phone? It was crushed to dust. Just like your SUV, which sank into the freezing mud an hour before the cops showed up to inspect the wreck."
Roland froze. The cops inspected it. That meant Curtis Hale had made sure the official report read: Single-vehicle accident, driver intoxicated, presumed dead.
Curtis thought he had buried his boss. He thought the throne was vacant.
A dangerous, chilling smile touched the corners of Roland's bruised lips. "You saved me, Clara. People who save Roland Vance usually find themselves rewarded beyond their wildest dreams. But people who cross him..." He let the sentence hang, heavy and lethal.
Clara crossed her arms, unimpressed. "Save the mobster theatrics for someone who cares, mister. You're in my house, bleeding on my cot, wearing a ruined three-thousand-dollar suit. Right now, you owe me fifty dollars for the medical supplies I bought at the 24-hour pharmacy, and an explanation on why a pack of professional hitters ran you off the road."
Roland stared at her, genuinely stunned. No one spoke to him like that. Not his lieutenants, not rival bosses, not even federal prosecutors.
Before he could answer, a loud knock rattled the front door downstairs.
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"Open up! Harbor Patrol! Routine check on the docks!"
Roland's eyes snapped to the door. Curtis's clean-up crew was already searching the area.
