Chapter 8 - The Shadow of the Waterfront
Dante did not dive for cover; in a thirty-inch brick corridor, cover did not exist.
He moved forward in a low, aggressive sprint, his bare feet finding traction in the wet clay with savage, instinctive speed. Bruno surged ahead of him like a black torpedo, his claws throwing up clods of dark earth, moving in absolute, terrifying silence.
The tunnel terminated abruptly in an expansive, vaulted cavern—an old stone boat slip carved directly into the living granite of the river bluff beneath the estate’s western gardens.
High arched masonry supports held up the stone terrace eighty feet above, while below, a narrow wooden slipway bordered a deep, black pool of water that connected directly to Lake Michigan through a submerged iron water gate. The ambient light here was a murky, bruised indigo, filtered through the iron bars of the gate from the violent storm raging across the open water.
In the center of the wooden slipway stood a man.
He wore a dark, rain-soaked tactical windbreaker, heavy mud-caked boots, and a black balaclava rolled up past his chin, exposing a weathered, hard-bitten face marked by a jagged scar that cut from his left nostril down to his lip. In his gloved hands, he held a short-barreled tactical carbine, slung across his chest on a single-point harness.
As the blinding beam of Dante’s weapon-light hit his face, the man didn't raise his rifle.
He simply stood there, his boots planted wide on the slick timber, his breath rising in pale, ragged plumes against the freezing lake draft. A faint, bitter smirk touched the corner of his scarred mouth.
"I wondered if the dog would bring you down here, Dante," the man said.
His voice was hoarse, raspy from years of tobacco and cold river wind.
Dante stepped out of the brick tunnel onto the wooden planking of the slipway, his pistol held dead center on the man’s sternum, his bare feet gray with clay and water. Bruno circled to the left, his belly low to the wood, his lips pulled back to expose two inches of glistening white bone, cutting off the man’s retreat toward the water gate.
Dante’s gray eyes narrowed into slits of razor-sharp ice.
"Julian," Dante said.
The name tasted like poison.
Julian Vance—former chief of logistics for the northern docks, the man who had been supposed to be driving the chase car behind Marco Reyes on the night the fire claimed the Green Bay bridge. The man who had disappeared forty-eight hours after the funeral, leaving behind a burned-out apartment and an empty bank account in Kenosha.
"You look well for a man who buried his brother," Julian said, his voice flat, completely devoid of fear.
"You died in Montreal three years ago, Julian," Dante said softly, each word weighted with lead. "I verified the dental records myself."
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Julian let out a dry, hacking laugh that was swallowed by the roar of the thunder shaking the stone vaulting overhead.
"You verified what the state police handed you, Dante. You verified what your own council wanted you to see. Because looking deeper meant asking why Marco was driving a car with a tracking beacon registered to your own private security frequency."
