Chapter 4 - Blood on the DocksThe rain fell in blinding sheets over Warehouse 14 on the South Side docks.
The building was a cavernous, rusting hull of corrugated iron and rotted timber, surrounded by shipping containers that groaned under the weight of the wind coming off Lake Michigan. Inside, two dozen men armed with automatic rifles were stationed along the catwalks, their weapons trained on the heavy sliding doors at the entrance.
At the center of the floor, sitting in a velvet armchair brought specifically for the occasion, was Sal Marcone.
Sal was sixty, overweight, with greasy gray hair and eyes like a rat. He was sipping whiskey from a glass, a cigar dangling from his lip, flanked by four heavy enforcers in leather coats.
The heavy iron doors groaned open.
A single figure walked into the warehouse.
No tactical gear. No squad of guards. Just Dante Vance, wearing a black trench coat against the rain, walking with slow, deliberate steps into the center of the room.
Sal Marcone laughed—a wet, hacking sound that echoed off the high steel rafters.
"Look at you, Dante," Sal sneered, blowing a cloud of blue cigar smoke into the damp air. "The big king of Chicago. Walking in here all alone like a martyr. Where's your army?"
"I don't need an army to kill a rat, Sal," Dante said calmly, stopping twenty feet from the armchair. His hands were tucked casually into the pockets of his trench coat. "I just need a cage."
Sal's smile vanished. "You think you're clever? You think I'm going to talk to you? You brought a chair leg to my hitmen, Dante! A damn waitress humiliated my best crew!"
"She's a better fighter than anyone you've ever hired," Dante replied coolly. "And now, Sal, we're at the end of the line. You targeted my mother. You targeted my daughter. There is no negotiation. There is no surrender."
"Kill him!" Sal screamed, leaping out of his chair.
The catwalks erupted with movement. Guns were raised—
And then the world blew apart.
The glass skylights above the warehouse shattered in a deafening cascade of rain and iron. Six heavy flashbang grenades plummeted from the rafters, exploding in blinding, disorienting flashes of light and thunderous sound.
The men on the catwalks screamed, clutching their eyes and ears as the disorientation hit them.
Before the echoes died away, the metal walls of the warehouse were breached. Heavy breaching charges blew three massive holes through the corrugated iron, and thirty of Dante's elite tactical operators flooded the floor, opening fire with suppressed weapons.
It wasn't a battle. It was an execution.
Dante moved like a phantom through the smoke and gunfire. He pulled a heavy twin set of pistols from beneath his coat, his movements terrifyingly precise, smooth, and lethal. Every shot found its target. Within forty seconds, the catwalks were clear, and Sal Marcone's four enforcers lay motionlessly on the concrete floor.
Sal scrambled backward, slipping in his own whiskey, clawing at his holster with shaking fingers.
Before he could pull his weapon, a heavy boot came down on his wrist, crushing the bones with a sickening crunch.
Sal screamed, collapsing onto his back.
Dante stood over him, his face illuminated by the flickering, broken industrial lights above. Blood splattered his coat, but his expression remained cold, empty, and utterly devoid of human warmth.
"Please!" Sal wept, holding his crushed wrist against his chest. "Dante, please! It was business! Just business!"
"Business ends when you touch my blood," Dante whispered.
He raised his weapon, lining up the sights between Sal Marcone's eyes.
Dante, don't!
A voice echoed in Dante's mind—not his mother's voice, not his daughter's, but Brielle's. Her tear-filled eyes, her raspy voice pleading with him in the penthouse: I want you to stay alive!
Dante froze for a fraction of a second. His finger hovered on the trigger.
He looked down at the pathetic, weeping old man on the floor. If he pulled the trigger, the Marcone family would fall, but the bloodbath would drag on for years. The federal authorities would get involved. The peace he had built for his family would be destroyed by a endless war of retribution.
Dante slowly lowered the weapon.
Sal gasped, looking up in disbelieving shock. "You... you're letting me live?"
Dante leaned down, grabbing Sal by his collar, pulling him up until their faces were inches apart.
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"I am taking everything you own, Sal," Dante said, his voice dropping into a register colder than death itself. "Your docks, your properties, your bank accounts. By sunrise, you will have nothing. You will be expelled from this city. If you ever set foot in Chicago again, I won't kill you. I will let the waitress finish what she started."
Dante threw the man back onto the floor, turned his back, and walked out into the pouring rain.
