Chapter 9 - The Arrest of the Patriarch
The smell of ozone and cordite drifted into the shattered terminal office as Emily lay pinned beneath Ryan’s heavy frame.
She could feel the furious, violent hammering of his heart against her ribs.
Ryan did not move his head.
He kept his forehead pressed against the dusty floorboards, his right hand sliding slowly toward the Colt automatic beneath his armpit.
“Don't draw it, Liam,” Collins called out from below, his voice echoing off the steel girders with mocking familiarity.
“My marksman on the crane gantry has a thermal lock on your spinal column through the floorboards.”
“If you raise that weapon two inches, he will put a fifty-caliber round through your ribs before you clear the holster.”
Ryan tightened his jaw until the tendons in his neck stood out like iron ropes.
He did not reach for the gun.
He placed his lips against Emily's ear, whispering so softly that even the dust seemed not to hear.
“Stay beneath the desk,” he murmured.
“The steel pedestal of this desk is solid quarter-inch plate.”
“It will stop light rifle fire.”
“Whatever happens down there, do not show your face until you hear the sirens.”
“What sirens?” Emily whispered back, her fingers clutching his forearm in sheer panic.
“Samuel's sirens,” Ryan whispered.
Ryan slowly pushed himself up from the floor, his hands held high, palms open toward the shattered window.
He stood in full view of the warehouse floor, looking down from the steel landing at the man who had sired him.
Collins stood twenty feet below, surrounded by his armed mercenaries, looking up at Ryan with a twisted, possessive grin.
“Look at you,” Collins sneered, resting the shotgun against his hip.
“Vincent DeMarco gave you his clothes, his money, and his arrogant walk.”
“But you have my eyes, Liam.”
“You have the Collins jaw.”
“Did the old deaf bastard finally tell you whose blood you carry?”
“My name is Ryan DeMarco,” Ryan answered, his voice ringing through the empty grain terminal with absolute, unwavering clarity.
“And the only thing I inherited from you is a profound disgust for every man who hides behind a state shield.”
Collins laughed—a sharp, barking sound that held no humor whatsoever.
“You think you're clever because you stole the old records from the safe?”
“Your grandfather is currently sitting in holding cell four at the central precinct.”
“I had him booked on suspicion of harboring an accessory to capital murder.”
“He didn't say a word, of course.”
“He just sat there on that steel bench with his little notepad, watching me with those dead, useless eyes.”
“So I took his notepad away.”
“I took his reading glasses away.”
“I left him in the dark with four violent felons who have grievances against the DeMarco family's harbor operations.”
Emily heard the words from beneath the desk, and a wave of pure, burning hatred tore through her chest.
An eighty-two-year-old deaf man, left defenseless in a cell without his glasses or his pen, just to break his pride.
Ryan’s eyes never flickered.
He stepped down the first metal stair, his hands still held at shoulder height.
“You didn't leave him in the dark, Collins.”
“You left him in a room that you don't control as completely as you think.”
Collins frowned slightly, his smirk faltering for a fraction of a second.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Samuel knew you were coming three days ago,” Ryan said, taking another deliberate step down the rusted flight.
“He knew the moment your contact inside the domestic agency flagged Emily's background file.”
“Did you really believe an eighty-two-year-old man who ran this city's northern docks for forty years would keep the original ledgers in a wall safe behind an oil painting?”
Collins's face hardened, the shotgun in his hands raising an inch.
“The portfolio in your rucksack,” Collins snapped, gesturing with his barrel.
“Toss it down.”
“The portfolio in my bag contains carbon duplicates and modern municipal filings,” Ryan said, his tone chillingly casual.
“The original nineteenth-ninety-nine Internal Affairs ledgers—the ones containing your handwritten kickback tallies and your signature on Sarah’s forged death certificate—were sent by bonded courier to the state supreme court two hours ago.”
Collins took a step backward, his eyes widening with sudden, volatile paranoia.
“You're lying.”
“Check your private line, Collins,” Ryan said, descending another two steps.
“Check why your dispatch radio has been silent for the last twelve minutes.”
“The jamming unit on your tactical van didn't block our signals; it isolated you from your own department.”
“Right now, the state troopers from the southern district are surrounding this terminal.”
As if summoned by his words, the distant, rising wail of dozens of emergency sirens cut through the roar of the rain outside.
Blue and amber lights flashed across the high skylights of Pier Nine, casting long, chaotic patterns through the leaking glass.
The mercenaries around Collins looked at each other with sudden, frantic unease.
“Boss,” one of the masked men muttered, lowering his carbine.
“We have perimeter activity at the gate.”
“State vehicles.”
“Dozens of them.”
Collins spun around toward the loading bays, his face contorting into an expression of rabid, cornered fury.
He looked back up at Ryan on the stairs, his eyes burning with lethal intent.
“If I go down,” Collins snarled, raising the shotgun directly toward Ryan's chest, “I am taking Sarah’s mistake with me!”
Before Collins could pull the trigger, Emily threw herself out from behind the steel desk above.
She grabbed an ancient brass fire extinguisher mounted to the office wall, ripped it from its rusted bracket, and hurled it with all her strength over the railing.
The heavy cylinder plunged twenty feet through the air, striking Collins squarely across his right shoulder.
May you like
The shotgun discharged with a deafening roar, the buckshot tearing through the tin roof fifty feet above Ryan's head.
Ryan lunged forward down the remaining stairs like a striking panther, his Colt clearing its holster before his boots even hit the concrete floor.
