Chapter 8 - The Broken Deal
The black Suburban screeched to a halt beneath the rotting industrial girders of Pier 42.
The rain beat against the corrugated iron roofs of the abandoned shipping warehouses like thousands of drumsticks.
Gabriel kept his headlights dark, cutting the engine to let the vehicle coast into the shadows of an empty container yard.
"Stay inside the vehicle with the child," Gabriel ordered Claire, checking the spare magazines in his vest.
"The doors are armored to withstand fifty-caliber rounds."
"No," Claire said, grabbing his arm before he could open the tactical door.
"You don't understand the lullaby, Gabriel."
"The silver hawk isn't a nursery rhyme."
"It was my mother's private call sign when she worked harbor logistics for your father thirty years ago."
Gabriel stopped, his hand freezing on the door handle as he stared at Claire.
"What did you just say?"
"My mother, Margaret, didn't grow up poor in Astoria," Claire explained, her voice trembling with pieces falling into place.
"She left the syndicate when your father seized control of the docks."
"She took the master ledger with her."
"Julianna doesn't want Lily dead because of a petty inheritance."
"She wants the cryptographic key that your late wife hid inside Lily's medical records."
A sudden crash of metal shattered the front windshield of the Suburban.
A heavy shipping crane hook swung through the dark, slamming into the armored hood of the vehicle and lifting the front tires off the asphalt.
Men in black tactical gear emerged from the shadows between the shipping containers, weapons raised.
Salvatore Moretti stepped into the headlights, an umbrella held over his head by an armed bodyguard.
Beside him stood Julianna Cross, holding a heavy chrome revolver and smiling with triumphant cruelty.
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"Step out of the truck, Gabriel," Julianna shouted over the roar of the wind.
"Or we drop the shipping container hanging twenty feet above your roof."
