Chapter 8 - The Price of Treason
The warehouse was dead quiet for ten full seconds.
Frank Moretti stared down at the crisp white legal papers resting on the oil-stained concrete. The reality of his complete, total ruin was setting in. He had lost his docks. He had lost his shipping contracts. He had lost his standing in the city, all because his cowardly brother-in-law wanted to drive a shiny German sports car while stiffing a single mother on her pay.
A sudden, desperate madness flared in Moretti’s eyes.
"No," Moretti hissed, his voice dropping into a rabid snarl. "I spent thirty years building this line! I'm not handing the keys to a damn waitress because a four-year-old drew some crayon stars!"
He ripped a chrome snub-nosed revolver from beneath his leather coat.
He didn't point it at Vincent Kane. He knew Kane’s men would turn him into Swiss cheese before the hammer clicked.
Instead, Moretti swung the barrel straight toward my mother and me.
"Mom!" I cried.
Mom didn't run. She didn't scream. With the primal, blinding speed of a mother protecting her young, she threw her entire body forward, covering me completely on the concrete floor, bracing her back against the incoming bullet.
BANG.
The gunshot cracked through the warehouse like thunder.
I squeezed my eyes shut, clutching the hem of Mom’s coat, waiting for the blood, waiting for the screaming.
None came.
Slowly, I opened my eyes.
Mom was shaking, her eyes wide with shock, but she was untouched.
Five feet in front of us, Vincent Kane stood with his left arm extended. His charcoal wool sleeve was torn along the forearm, a dark, glistening ribbon of crimson soaking through the fine fabric, dripping slowly onto the concrete floor.
He had stepped directly into the path of the round, his broad shoulder taking the bullet that had been meant for my mother’s chest.
Vincent didn't fall. He didn't even drop to a knee.
His face was an unreadable slab of granite, his gray eyes burning with an ancient, terrifying fury that seemed to fill the entire warehouse with ice.
Behind him, Briggs’s shotgun roared once.
Frank Moretti was thrown backward through the air by the impact, crashing into a stack of wooden pallets, his revolver clattering harmlessly across the stone floor. He lay there, clutching his shattered shoulder, screaming in agony.
Moretti’s thirty dock enforcers immediately dropped their weapons to the floor. Rifles, handguns, and knives clattered against the concrete in a frantic chorus of surrender. Not one man was willing to die for a dead boss.
"Disarm them," Briggs commanded, his voice shaking with pure rage. "Strip them of their credentials and throw them outside into the river mud."
Vincent didn't look at Moretti. He didn't look at his own bleeding arm.
He slowly knelt down on the cold floor in front of Mom and me.
Mom was crying hysterically now, reaching out with trembling fingers toward his torn sleeve. "Mr. Kane... you’re shot! My God, you’re bleeding! You took a bullet for us!"
"It grazed the muscle, Clara," Vincent said softly, his breathing steady, completely unbothered by the wound. "A scratch."
He turned his eyes to me.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the little box of worn crayons, and took out the purple one. With shaking fingers, I reached out and gently pressed the purple crayon into his open, uninjured palm.
"What is this for, Rory?" Vincent asked, looking down at the broken piece of wax.
"For your arm," I whispered, my chin quivering. "So you don't forget you were brave."
Vincent Kane looked down at the tiny piece of purple crayon resting against his scarred, bloody hand.
May you like
For the first time since this nightmare began, the legendary boss of Chicago closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling in a deep, quiet breath.
"I won't forget, little girl," he murmured, closing his strong fingers around the crayon. "I'll keep it right here."
