Chapter 5 - The Docks at 3 AM
Pier 42 was a rusting graveyard of shipping containers, giant cranes, and freezing salt fog rolling off the Pacific.
Sloan sat in the front passenger seat of a dark, low-profile sedan parked three hundred yards away from the main warehouse. She was wearing a dark tactical jacket Vance had given her, a pair of high-powered night-vision binoculars pressed against her eyes.
Beside her, Vance sat in silence, checking the magazine of a custom SIG Sauer pistol before sliding it into his shoulder holster.
"You don't have to do this," Vance said softly, looking at her in the dim light of the dashboard. "If things go bad down there, my driver will take you straight to Canada. You’ll have a new identity, five hundred thousand dollars in cash, and a clean slate."
Sloan lowered the binoculars and looked at him. "And what happens to you?"
"I die," Vance said simply. "That’s the agreement I signed with this life twenty years ago."
Sloan looked back toward the warehouse. "My mother always told me that running from monsters just makes them chase you faster. I'm tired of running, Mr. Vance."
"Call me Dominic," he said softly.
"Through the binoculars," Sloan said, refocusing on the warehouse entrance. "I see three vehicles. Two black Escalades and a grey van. Paulie is standing near the loading bay door. He’s smoking a cigarette."
"How does he look?"
"Nervous. He’s taken four drags in fifteen seconds. He keeps dropping his lighter. But... he’s not looking at the entrance waiting for you."
"Where is he looking?" Vance asked, his tone sharpening.
"He’s looking up," Sloan said, panning her binoculars toward the rusted steel rafters of the warehouse roof. "He keeps checking the industrial skylights on the west wing. Frame three and four."
Vance pulled out a secure radio. "Marcus. Roof team. West wing skylights. Paulie has snipers set up."
"Copy that, Boss," Marcus’s voice crackled through the earbud Sloan was wearing. "We see them. Two men with silenced rifles. We're neutralizing them now."
A minute of agonizing silence passed. Through the optics, Sloan saw two faint figures on the warehouse roof slump forward, silenced by Marcus’s team without a single gunshot echoing through the fog.
"Snipers are down," Sloan reported, her breath fogging up the glass. "But wait... Dominic, look at the grey van."
"What about it?"
"It’s an armored private security vehicle from Apex Global Solutions," Sloan said, remembering the logos she used to see parked outside the high-end medical clinics near her nursing school. "Apex doesn't work for Portland mobsters. They work for federal contractors and foreign tech conglomerates."
Vance’s eyes narrowed into slits of ice. "Apex... That means this isn't a rival syndicate family trying to take my territory."
"It’s a corporate buyout," Sloan realized, the pieces suddenly falling into place. "The land under your waterfront docks... the city council voted last week to approve the deep-water port expansion, didn't they?"
"Yes," Vance said, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. "That land is worth three billion dollars. But I refused to sell to the offshore investment group."
"Paulie didn't sell you out for power," Sloan whispered. "He was paid off by Apex. They bought him, gave him an army, and told him to eliminate you so they could buy the land from his estate."
Suddenly, the warehouse doors slid open. A man in an expensive navy coat stepped out into the fog, surrounded by four heavily armed Apex mercenaries.
Sloan zoomed in on the man’s face. "Dominic... do you know who that is?"
Vance took the binoculars from her hands and looked through them. His blood ran cold.
"Julian Thorne," Vance growled. "The CEO of Vanguard Capital."
"He was at Table Four at Aurelio’s tonight," Sloan remembered, her eyes wide with shock. "He was sitting right behind you, eating steak, watching the fake server try to kill you."
Vance set the binoculars down. A dark, terrifying smile spread across his face—the smile of a predator that had finally located its prey.
"He sat in my restaurant," Vance said softly. "He ate my food. And he tried to bleed me on my own floor."
Vance clicked his seatbelt off and chambered a round into his pistol.
"Stay in the car, Sloan," he ordered.
"No," Sloan said, reaching for the door handle. "Thorne knows who I am. If you go in there shooting, he'll hit his panic button and execute the contingency plan. I know how men like him think—they always have a backup plan for witnesses."
May you like
Vance paused, looking at her with a mixture of shock and profound admiration. "What are you suggesting?"
"I walk in first," Sloan said, her eyes flashing with a fierce, unbreakable resolve. "I play the scared, stupid waitress who wants to trade information for her life. I get Thorne to confirm the contract on record... and then you blow the door off its hinges."
