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But on the whole, I’d rathernothave my head taken off by a sharpshooter, if that’s who’s got their eye on me. So I keep my head low and climb back down the crane. I don’t take the open staircase, of course—too obvious. But it’s easy enough to make my way down the great beams of the steel structure.
It takes a few minutes to make it to the bottom, and when I reach the ground, I hear that the SWAT team has arrived. I have seconds to decide what to do next.
I still have time to bolt. They won’t notice one silent shadow in the night.
But I’ve always liked Jack. Life would be dull without him around.
Sandro likes him, too.
I straighten my gloves and pull down my balaclava—handy to hide my noticeably fair hair, and my face, which people appear to find memorable—then make for the docks, sliding around in the shadows until I spot Jack and his crew. They’ve taken cover in the shipping containers stacked up on the docks, but Jack’s hat is easy enough to spot, and his sure-footed gait is very familiar to me.
They’re all focused on their mission…whichdoesn’tseem to primarily be about getting out alive. Something bigger is going on here. A hit, maybe? Jack is our best hitman, but this isn’t his natural habitat. He’s a loner, despite being a high-ranked Capo. He prefers to work quietly and efficiently, which is why the truck, driving into the midst of the Bernardis, surprised me.
I like that about Jack. Most people aren’t surprising at all. Most people are open books with stories not worth reading.
Not Jack.
I wait behind the corner of one shipping container, watching as he takes stock of his men and gives out orders in an undertone. Freddy Lazzaro is there with him, and, based on Jack’s pointing, he’s being told to get the crew out ASAP.
That means Jack has plans of his own.
Sure enough, the Castellanis vanish like smoke, and I follow Jack as he makes his way through the shipping containers, back toward the Bernardi front line. Nowthisis more him: a shadow moving toward his target. I wonder who that target is. Whatever is going on here has not been widely circulated through the Family’s senior administration, or at least, not to me. Sandro tends to keep certain things away from the inner circle, which is probably just as well.
Of course,Ihaven’t touched base with the Family for almost a week. I should probably check in. Someone might have missed me, after all.
I silently chuckle in appreciation of my own joke.
Jack is on a mission, so focused that he doesn’t even notice his beloved hat—it must have come off during the initial firefight—lying on the ground over there. I nip out of the shadows to pick it up. Better not leave any traceable evidence lying around.
SWAT has come in now, all shouts and shooting. Whatever is going on here will end soon.
A Bernardi runs around the corner and straight past Jack, barely glancing at him. This is a man who is more interested in his life than in fighting for his Family. Jack lets him go, so I do, too. But there are more of them coming from all directions.
I take out a knife, just in case; not one of my favorites, but it’s well-balanced and easily-thrown, generic and difficult to trace. Sometimes aesthetics have to take a back seat to practicality. And it’s just as well I did take it out, because a split-second later, a herd of Bernardis thunders through the alleyway between shipping containers, and more than one pauses to take aim at Jack.
He gets two of them. Neat shots, clean kills, and isn’t competence sexy? But there’s a third coming up behind him.
I have all confidence in Jack, I really do, but I can’t resist my opportunity here.
I throw my knife, watching with satisfaction as it embeds into a thick Bernardi throat. The other Bernardis are on the run again, and Jack stands there staring at the fresh corpse next to him, wondering who his guardian angel might be.
I slide back into the shadows. Based on the direction of the noise, I’m pretty sure SWAT is triangulating, squeezing those pesky mobsters into a pinch, where they’ll take them out. I make my way toward the quieter area, still within the shipping containers, until I’m stopped dead in my tracks by a powerful, angry roar.
I slide up against the metal siding and watch as a Bernardi, huge and muscular with tattoo sleeves, backs his way through the shipping containers. Close-cropped black hair and dark eyes. A thick-lipped mouth, the kind that always makes me want to bite at it. And he’s firing a Colt Anaconda of all things, in enough of a hurry to only glance my way.
Before he can do anything, I go back around the corner and run the opposite way.
The scent of blood is heavy in the air. A hint of sourness, raw and heady, suggests that a lot of that blood is already coagulating. I tiptoe down a narrow passageway between towering, stacked shipping containers, the smell of salt water and oil overtaking the blood. The soft darkness is almost cozy. It’s just me and the regular thumping of my heart. But I assume that mountainous Bernardi is still out there somewhere.
Yes—I hear heavy breathing. From around this corner.
And there he is.
He stands with his back to me, his vast, heavily-muscled body tense with fury. He’s wearing a tight tee that was once white, but is now drenched with the blood of his brethren, and torn up enough to reveal that his broad back is a mottled canvas of tattoos as well. His powerful hands clench and unclench around his gun.
He swivels. Those dark eyes lock onto me. I expect rage, and yes, it’s there—an emotion I’ve seen directed at me often enough from dear Sandro, and one of the few I feel myself from time to time—but to my surprise, it’s not accompanied by the animalistic violence I usually see in Bernardi eyes.
