Chapter 3 - Blood on the Streets
I paced furiously in the back of my armored SUV as we sped wildly toward the abandoned shipyard.
Clara had absolutely refused to stay behind at the safe house.
She sat quietly in the corner of the leather seat, clutching a spare pistol with visibly shaking hands.
"You need to stay inside this heavily armored vehicle when the shooting starts," I instructed her firmly.
Clara just stared blankly out the tinted window into the pouring, relentless midnight rain.
"I am not leaving this terrible place without my beautiful daughter," she replied with surprising, fierce venom.
We finally pulled into the sprawling, decaying industrial shipyard surrounded by rusted shipping containers.
Dozens of heavily armed Russian mercenaries stepped slowly out from the deep shadows.
I stepped out of the vehicle entirely alone, carrying two heavy duffel bags filled with explosive cash.
Sergei Petrov, the massive, scarred leader of the cartel, stood confidently on a raised metal platform.
"You brought the money just like a good little dog, Alessandro," Sergei laughed arrogantly.
"Where is the girl, Sergei?" I demanded, completely ignoring his pathetic insult.
Sergei snapped his thick fingers, and two men dragged a tiny, hooded figure out onto the catwalk.
My heart stopped completely in my chest for a fraction of a second.
"Toss up the bags, and I will let the little rat go," Sergei promised with a wicked, toothy grin.
I aggressively hurled the heavy bags up onto the rusted metal platform.
Sergei greedily unzipped the first canvas bag, his eyes shining brightly at the sight of the stacked bills.
I immediately pressed the hidden detonator tightly concealed inside my heavy coat pocket.
A massive, deafening explosion violently ripped through the elevated metal catwalk.
The blast threw Sergei and his armed men violently into the freezing, dark harbor water below.
Fierce gunfire instantly erupted from every single direction as my hidden soldiers swarmed the chaotic shipyard.
I desperately sprinted through the thick, choking smoke toward the tiny hooded figure lying on the ground.
I ripped the dark canvas hood off, only to find a terrifying, horrifying truth.
It was just a cheap plastic mannequin dressed in Lily's tiny, familiar clothes.
It was a meticulously planned trap designed specifically to draw me out into the open.
May you like
Suddenly, a loud, piercing scream aggressively cut through the deafening sounds of heavy gunfire.
I spun around just in time to see a masked man violently dragging Clara into the back of a speeding black truck.
