Chapter 6 - A Father’s War Inside the Warehouse
The first gunshot echoed off the corrugated metal walls like thunder inside a tin shed.
A heavy-caliber round blew out the second-floor office window, showering Matteo’s desk with tempered glass shards that glittered like diamonds under the sodium lamps.
“Get down!” I shouted, shoving Matteo behind the steel filing cabinets.
Nico was already at the balcony railing, a suppressed submachine gun leveled at the catwalk stairs leading up from the freight bay.
“How many?” I called out over the ringing in my ears.
“At least six,” Nico shouted back, firing a controlled three-round burst down into the shadows of the loading dock. “They’re moving through the container aisles. They’ve got wire cutters and breaching tools.”
“What do they want?” Matteo yelled from behind the filing cabinet, clutching his bleeding left forearm where a glass shard had sliced deep into the flesh.
“They want the ledger,” I said, sliding a fresh magazine into my Sig Sauer. “And they want to make sure nobody walks out of here with a direct line to the federal prosecutor’s office or a seven-year-old girl.”
“I didn't call them, Marco! I swear to God!” Matteo’s voice was ragged, desperate, stripped of all its corporate polish.
“I know you didn't,” I said coldly. “Salvatore has been looking for an excuse to push me out of the port terminals for two years. Finding out I have a living heir—and that my chief operating officer hid her in a West Side orphanage—was the golden ticket.”
Another volley of automatic gunfire chewed through the drywall beside the office door, sending plumes of gray dust into the air.
Footsteps clattered against the iron stairs leading up to our mezzanine.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
Professional.
“Nico, take the rear fire escape,” I ordered.
“Boss—I’m not leaving you here with—”
“Go to St. Margaret’s. Get Sophia out of that building before Salvatore’s cleanup crew reaches the West Side. Use the armored Suburban. Do not stop for red lights, do not stop for police, and do not call my phone.”
Nico hesitated for half a second, his knuckles white around the grip of his weapon. Then he nodded once, kicked out the emergency fire exit door at the back of the mezzanine, and disappeared into the rainy Chicago night.
I turned back to Matteo, who was pressing a handkerchief against his bleeding arm.
“Stand up.”
“Marco—”
“Stand up, Matteo.”
He staggered to his feet, leaning against the wooden desk.
“You’re going to walk out that front door with your hands up,” I said.
“They’ll kill me on sight. Salvatore gave standing orders—”
“They won't kill you if you hand them the one thing they think I value more than my empire.”
I grabbed the manila folder from the desk and shoved it against his chest.
“Tell them I’m already gone. Tell them I took the girl and headed for the Canadian border. Buy me twenty minutes.”
Matteo looked at the folder, then at my face.
May you like
“And you?”
“I’m going to go pick up my daughter.”
