Chapter 13 - The Ghost of Pier Seventeen
Elena didn’t run to safety.
She made it to the boathouse three hundred yards down the rocky shoreline, secured Leo inside the locked rear cabin of a vintage mahogany runabout, and immediately turned back. She knew Dante. She knew his lethal efficiency, but she also knew the fatal flaw that had almost killed him on Pier Seventeen: he fought like a man who believed he deserved to die.
From the boathouse tool rack, Elena retrieved her father’s legacy—a sleek, nickel-plated Beretta 92FS that she had kept hidden in an oilcloth bag inside an old marine battery case. She checked the magazine, chambered a round with a practiced snap, and sprinted back through the dense sea fog toward the cottage.
Gunfire was still echoing from the cellar entrance, sharp and violent.
As she crept along the rocky ridge overlooking the back of the house, she saw Dante pinned behind a granite boulder near the storm drain. His coat was torn, dark blood soaking through his left shoulder, but his gun hand was still steady. Three bodies lay motionless in the surf before him, but two heavily armed mercenaries were flanking him from the high ground of the bluff.
One of the shooters raised an MP5, centering the red-dot sight directly onto the back of Dante's head.
Elena didn't hesitate. She drew a steady breath, leaned against the trunk of a wind-twisted pine, and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet struck the flanker in the temple, dropping him instantly onto the gravel path.
The second shooter spun in surprise toward the source of the shot, but the momentary distraction was all Dante needed. He surged from behind the boulder, firing three rounds upward through the fog. The second man tumbled down the embankment, lifeless before he hit the rocks.
Dante spun around, his weapon raised, his eyes wild and predatory—until they locked onto Elena standing on the ridge with smoke curling from the barrel of her Beretta.
For three seconds, neither of them breathed.
"I told you to run," Dante said, his voice raspy as he clutched his bleeding shoulder.
Elena walked down the slope, her boots crunching on the wet stone, her face fierce and unyielding.
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"I didn't flee an entire mafia syndicate just to let some Russian mercenaries make me a widow twice, Dante," she said cold and clear. "Now shut up and let me look at your shoulder."
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