Chapter 3 - The Shadow on the Docks
A black sedan slid to a halt twenty yards behind her, its high beams cutting through the sheets of blinding rain.
Ruby didn't turn around immediately, but every instinct honed by growing up along the rough docks of South Boston screamed at her to move. She quickened her pace, her heart hammering against her ribs. She was defenseless. No phone, no gun, no money.
The sedan doors clicked open.
Two men stepped out into the storm, wearing dark heavy coats. They weren't Gideon’s men. Gideon’s security detail moved with military precision, quiet and disciplined. These men moved with the loose, aggressive gait of street enforcers.
“Mrs. Rossi!” a harsh, gravelly voice called out over the sound of the thunder. “Little late for a stroll, isn't it?”
Ruby turned into an alleyway leading toward the industrial water edge of the Fort Point Channel. She knew these streets better than any chauffeur Gideon had ever assigned to her. She knew where the dead ends were, where the old wooden loading docks decayed into the salt water, and where the narrow gaps between brick warehouses could conceal a human frame.
“Hey! Hold up!”
Footsteps pounded against the wet asphalt behind her.
Ruby ran.
Her boots slipped on the slick cobblestones of the old shipping district. The wind ripped at her coat, heavy with water, dragging her down like a wet blanket. She turned sharp right behind an abandoned brick distillery, her lungs burning with the sudden cold intake of air.
“Don't run, sweet face!” the voice echoed, closer now. “Dante Moretti just wants to have a little chat about your husband’s shipping permits!”
Moretti.
The name sent a surge of panic straight to her brain. The Moretti family was the principal rival to the Rossi syndicate. For years, Dante Moretti had tried to muscle his way into the deep-water terminals. When Gideon had married Ruby, effectively placing the terminals under Rossi protection, Dante had been completely cut out of the lucrative Atlantic smuggling routes.
If Dante captured her now, she wouldn't just be a bargaining chip. She would be leverage to force Gideon into surrendering the ports.
Gideon wouldn't give them up, she realized with a bitter stroke of clarity. He would calculate the loss of the asset versus the cost of the territory.
She ducked into the shadow of a rusted shipping container near Pier 4. Water ran off the corrugated steel roof in torrents, splashing over her head. She pulled herself into the narrow gap between two containers, holding her breath, her hand pressed firmly over her mouth to muffle her desperate gasps for air.
Heavy footsteps splashed past her hiding spot.
“Where’d she go?” one of the men cursed. “She was right in front of us!”
“Check the wooden pier! She can't cross the channel without being seen!”
The shadows shifted as the two men moved toward the docks, their drawn handguns glinting in the pale streetlights.
Ruby sank deeper into the dark gap, shivering violently from the cold and shock. Her body was trembling so hard her teeth clicked together. She wrapped her arms around her knees, looking out at the black, churning waters of the Boston Harbor.
She had wanted freedom. She had wanted to escape Gideon’s cold, transactional world. But in stepping out of his orbit, she had instantly fallen into the shark-infested waters that his name had kept at bay for half a year.
Suddenly, a massive hand reached into the gap between the containers and clamped firmly over her shoulder.
Ruby opened her mouth to scream, her elbow driving backward with all her strength.
The blow hit a chest as hard as iron.
“Quiet,” a deep, familiar voice growled into her ear.
Before she could process the sound, she was pulled effortlessly out of the narrow space into a broad, solid chest. The smell of expensive cedar, fresh rain, and faint gun smoke enveloped her.
Gideon.
He was completely drenched. His immaculate black hair was plastered to his forehead, his custom tailored suit coat abandoned somewhere in the storm. He held her tightly against him with one arm, his other hand holding a dark suppressor-equipped pistol trained toward the end of the alley.
“Gideon...” she gasped, her voice barely a whisper.
He didn't look at her. His gray eyes were lethal, tracking the movements of the two men near the pier like a wolf watching prey.
“You left your coat,” he said, his voice terrifyingly low, vibrating against her cheek. “And you are trespassing on a dangerous pier.”
“They... they’re Moretti’s men,” she breathed, shivering against his warmth despite herself.
May you like
“I know,” Gideon replied calmly. “They made the mistake of following what belongs to me.”
He stepped out of the shadow, dragging her behind him with effortless strength, and pulled the trigger twice before the men on the pier even realized the storm was no longer their biggest problem.
