Chapter 4 - BLOOD ON THE FOGDeclan dropped to one knee.
He didn't care about the dust on the floor, didn't care about his thousand-dollar trousers. He looked at his son—the small nose, the messy dark curls, the sharp, intelligent hazel eyes that belonged to Lena, and the stubborn chin that was pure Ward.
“Hello, Evan,” Declan said, his hard voice softening into something gentle, reverent.
Evan took three hesitant steps into the room, leaving his mother’s side, and stopped right in front of Declan. He reached out a small, warm hand and touched the lapel of Declan’s heavy coat.
“You’re really tall,” Evan observed. “Are you a doctor for Dad?”
Declan looked up at Thomas Bell, whose blue eyes were filled with silent, painful dignity, and then at Lena, who stood frozen with her hand over her mouth.
“I’m going to get a doctor for your dad,” Declan promised the boy softly. “And I’m going to make sure you get better too.”
Suddenly, the front porch creaked outside.
Declan’s instincts, honed by twenty years in the dark underbelly of New York, screamed an immediate warning. He stood up swiftly, pulling Evan behind him.
The front door swung open.
Victor Sokolov stepped into the small hallway. His heavy wool coat was damp with fog, and his hand was tucked inside his jacket, resting on the butt of a suppressed 9mm pistol.
Victor’s eyes swept the room—taking in Lena, the dying fisherman on the bed, and the small boy hiding behind Declan’s legs.
“Boss,” Victor said, his voice flat, emotionless. “We’ve been here twenty minutes. You’re missing three calls from the union leaders in New York. We need to leave.”
Declan didn't move. His gray eyes turned into shards of flint.
“Did you give her ten thousand dollars, Victor?” Declan asked quietly.
Victor didn't blink. A slow, subtle shift occurred in his posture—his feet spread slightly, lowering his center of gravity. “She told you.”
“She told me you threatened to sell her to the Genovese family if she didn't disappear,” Declan said, taking one step forward, placing himself completely between Victor and the family. “She told me you forced my pregnant wife out into the cold five years ago.”
“She wasn't your wife, Declan!” Victor barked, his calm veneer finally shattering. “She was a nurse from Queens! You were six months away from taking over the entire waterfront! You were building an empire, and you were going soft over a woman who cried every time you brought work home!”
“She carried my son!” Declan roared, his voice echoing off the wooden rafters.
“And that son would have been a target!” Victor shouted back. “Look at you! You drove six hours in the dark because a dead watch vibrated! You’re the most feared man in New York, and you’re standing in a fisherman’s kitchen talking about pediatric doctors! I saved your empire, Declan! I pruned the branch so the tree could grow!”
“You didn't prune a branch, Victor,” Declan said, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. “You cut out my heart.”
Victor’s hand moved. He began to draw his pistol from his coat.
In one violent, fluid motion, Declan lunged forward.
He grabbed Victor’s wrist before the gun could clear the leather holster, slamming Victor’s arm against the doorframe. The wood splintered with a loud crack. Declan drove his elbow into Victor’s jaw, forcing the larger man backward onto the foggy porch.
The two men crashed onto the damp wooden floorboards outside.
Victor spat blood, swinging a heavy right hook that caught Declan across the cheekbone. Declan stumbled back, but recovered instantly, tackling Victor over the porch railing. They crashed into the gravel driveway in a tangle of limbs and fury.
“I raised you!” Victor yelled, trying to bring his gun to bear. “I fought beside your father in Brooklyn!”
“And you betrayed my blood!” Declan screamed.
Declan caught Victor’s gun hand with both hands, twisting the wrist until the bone popped with a sickening crunch. The suppressed pistol clattered into the wet gravel. Declan mounted Victor, his fists raining down on his former lieutenant’s face with terrifying, methodical precision.
Right. Left. Right.
Every blow was five years of grief. Five years of sleeping alone in a cold penthouse. Five years of believing Lena had abandoned him.
Victor lay battered in the mud, his face swollen and bleeding, breathing heavily against the gravel.
Declan stood up, his suit ruined, his knuckles bloody, his chest heaving in the cool morning air. He picked up Victor’s fallen pistol, ejected the magazine, cleared the chamber, and tossed the empty weapon into the salt marsh across the road.
“Get up,” Declan said coldly.
Victor groaned, coughing up blood as he rolled onto his side. “What… what are you gonna do to me, Declan? Kill me?”
Declan looked back at the blue saltbox house. Through the window, he could see Lena holding Evan, while Thomas leaned weakly against the headboard, watching.
May you like
“No,” Declan said. “Killing you is too clean. You’re going to walk down to the harbor, Victor. You’re going to take the bus back to New York. By the time you get there, every asset you own in my city will be seized. Every contact you have will be burned. If you ever step foot in New York, or Maine, or anywhere near my family again, I won't use a gun. I’ll let the street eat you alive.”
Victor stared up at him in terror, realizing that his thirty years of power and status had been wiped out in a single morning. He dragged himself up from the gravel, turned, and stumbled away down the foggy road without another word.
