Chapter 2 - THE AMBUSH AT CANTON
The silence didn't last. In the world the Bellandis inhabited, loose ends were not left dangling in rain-slicked alleys for more than an hour.
I was wrapping Nora's forearm in clean white gauze when the headlights swept across the ceiling of her kitchen.
They were slow, deliberate beams of high-intensity halogen, slicing through the blinds and painting horizontal bars of light across the cracked wallpaper. A low, throaty rumble of an idling eight-cylinder engine vibrated through the floorboards.
Nora froze, her hand still resting against my ribs. "They tracked my car."
"Did you drive your sedan from Dundalk?" I asked, keeping my voice at a level whisper as I taped down the end of the bandage.
"No. I took a cab, dumped it four blocks away, and walked through the alleys in the rain."
"Then they didn't track you," I said coldly, standing up and reaching behind my back to unholster the Kimber .45 concealed beneath my suit jacket. "They tracked me."
I stepped to the window, peeling back the edge of the vinyl blind with the tip of the barrel.
Parked across the street, half-blocking the narrow Canton lane, was a black Cadillac Escalade. Three men were stepping out into the pouring rain. They wore heavy work jackets with hoods pulled low, but the way they moved—wide stances, hands shoved into deep pockets, eyes sweeping the second-story windows—told me everything I needed to know.
Bellandi enforcers. The wet-work crew Marcus kept for jobs that couldn't be solved with an envelope of cash.
"Pack a bag," I ordered quietly. "Medication, passport, cash. Nothing else. You have sixty seconds."
"Desmond—"
"Sixty seconds, Nora. Move."
She didn't argue. She bolted toward the small bedroom, leaving me alone in the kitchen.
I looked down at the table. I picked up the brass signet ring and slid it into my vest pocket. Then I took the photograph of Ethan's car, folded it carefully, and placed it inside my jacket, right over my heart.
A muffled thud came from downstairs. The heavy wooden front door of the four-unit brownstone had just been kicked off its hinges.
I moved to the hallway. Nora emerged from the bedroom with a worn canvas duffel bag slung over her uninjured shoulder. She had changed into a dark wool sweater and heavy boots, her hair pulled back into a hasty knot. Her face was pale, but the terror was gone, replaced by the cool, calculating focus that made her the best executive in Baltimore.
"The fire escape goes to the alley," she whispered.
"No good," I replied, checking the chamber of the Kimber. "They’ll have a man posted at the rear mouth of the alley. If they know how we operate, they'll flush the front and wait for us to drop into the crosshairs."
"The roof?"
"Roof connects to three rowhouses down. But the trapdoor is rusted shut."
"I have WD-40 under the sink," she said deadpan.
A faint, grim smile touched my lips despite the blood rushing in my ears. "No time. We take the stairs."
"Desmond, there are three of them."
"Then they are severely understaffed."
I took her uninjured hand, pulling her behind me as I moved toward the apartment door. I turned the knob without a sound and opened it an inch.
The stairwell smelled of wet carpet and cheap aftershave. Two men were coming up the creaking wooden steps, their heavy boots taking them two at a time. The first man had a suppressed Glock held low; the second was carrying a crowbar and a heavy leather roll.
"Check the back first," a low voice rasped from below. "Marcus said double-tap the girl, break Desmond’s legs, and bring him to the warehouse. The old man wants him alive enough to sign the harbor transfer before the wedding gets canceled."
So that was the play.
Vanessa’s wedding was never meant to be an alliance. It was a liquidation. They were going to force me to sign over the deep-water docking rights at Pier Twelve under torture, stage my "disappearance," and let Vanessa inherit the Hale estate as the grieving fiancée with a power of attorney.
A clean, corporate coup sealed in blood.
"Stay flat against the wall," I whispered to Nora.
I didn't wait for them to reach the landing.
I kicked the door wide open. The heavy oak slammed outward, catching the lead enforcer squarely in the face. A sickening crunch of breaking cartilage echoed in the stairwell as the man stumbled backward, his suppressed weapon discharging harmlessly into the floorboards.
I stepped through the doorway before he could recover, leveling the Kimber and firing twice into his center mass. The heavy .45 rounds hit him like sledgehammers, throwing him down the flight of stairs into his partner.
The second man cursed, shoving his dead comrade's body aside and bringing up a sawed-off shotgun.
I dropped to one knee. The deafening roar of the 12-gauge shattered the narrow confines of the hallway, tearing the plaster above my head to shreds and filling the air with blinding white dust.
Before he could pump the slide, I fired three rounds down the stairwell. The muzzle flashes lit the stairwell in strobes of violent yellow. Two rounds caught him in the chest; the third took him in the throat. He collapsed backward, rolling down to the first-floor landing and lying still.
"One more outside," I yelled through the ringing in my ears.
I grabbed Nora's arm, pulling her down the ruined staircase. The smell of cordite was thick enough to choke on. We leaped over the body of the second man on the landing, blood already pooling beneath his jacket and running toward the baseboards.
As we reached the shattered front doorway, the third man—the driver—appeared on the stoop, his weapon raised.
He didn't get the chance to fire.
Nora, her good arm swinging the heavy canvas duffel with the full rotational force of her body, struck him across the side of the head. The metal buckle of the strap clipped him across the temple, throwing his aim off just long enough for me to close the distance.
I caught his gun wrist, twisting it inward until the bone snapped with a clean pop, and drove my elbow into his solar plexus. As he doubled over, gasping for air, I slammed the heel of my palm into his jaw. He went limp, crashing into the sodden hydrangeas flanking the front steps.
"Car keys," I demanded.
Nora was already reaching into the driver’s open jacket, pulling out the heavy key fob for the Escalade.
"Here," she breathed, rain instantly plastering her dark hair to her face.
We vaulted into the SUV. I hit the ignition, the big V8 roaring to life, and slammed the transmission into reverse. We tore backward down the narrow street, tires screaming against wet asphalt, before I spun the wheel and launched the heavy truck onto Boston Street toward the highway.
In the rearview mirror, Nora sat curled against the passenger door, her injured arm clutched to her stomach, her chest heaving.
"Where are we going?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly now that the adrenaline was beginning to ebb. "If Alberto mobilized a wet crew, they've already locked down your penthouse. They’ll have eyes on the Hale Maritime offices. You can't go to your family."
"I don't have a family," I said, shifting into third and watching the Baltimore skyline blur through the wipers. "I have a collection of board members who would sell my corpse for a two-percent dividend."
"Then where?"
I looked at her, the dashboard lights casting her profile in amber and shadow.
"St. Michaels," I said. "The duck-hunting cabin Ethan bought under his mother's maiden name fifteen years ago. No one knows it exists except me, Ethan's ghost... and you."
Nora’s breath hitched. She looked away, out into the black water of the Patapsco River rushing past beneath the highway bridge.
"He told me about it," she said quietly. "A week before he died. He said if everything went to hell, that was where he’d wait for the dust to clear."
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"He didn't make it," I said, my knuckles white against the steering wheel. "We will."
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