Chapter 5 - Blood on the Harbor
The fog rolling off Puget Sound at dawn was thick enough to chew. It clung to the rusted cranes and towering shipping containers of Pier 17 like a wet shroud, muffling the rhythmic clank of heavy machinery and the distant horn of an incoming cargo freighter.
Khloe stood beside Dante on the raised catwalk of the central distribution warehouse, dressed in a black wool pea coat, dark trousers, and heavy combat boots. Her hair was tied back in a utilitarian braid. Beside her, Dante wore a dark tactical turtleneck beneath a leather jacket, an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth as he tracked the movement of three forklifts below.
Paulie and four heavily armed guards stood at the perimeter doors, submachine guns concealed beneath long rain slickers.
"The manifest shows seventy crates of industrial machine parts from Rotterdam," Khloe said, holding a ruggedized tablet in her hands, her eyes scanning the digital inventory sheets. Her background in maritime logistics wasn't just a cover anymore; for the past forty-eight hours, she had thrown herself into Dante’s legitimate front operations with ruthless efficiency. "Weight is off on crate series 400 through 412. By approximately three hundred kilos."
Dante glanced down at her tablet, a faint, predatory gleam in his eye. "Cocaine?"
"No," Khloe pointed to the tare weight differential. "Too heavy for narcotics, too light for solid iron pistons. It’s munitions. Military-grade hardware. Likely FN SCAR assault rifles and polymer explosives. If this clears customs under your family’s seal, federal agents will have enough probable cause to raid the estate by noon."
Dante took the cigar from his mouth, his jaw hardening into granite. "Marco. He switched the cargo at the transfer dock in Ensenada."
"He didn't just switch it," Khloe continued, tapping another screen that displayed the electronic security logs. "The customs clearance code was authorized using my old administrative password from Pier 48. Jared had it stored in his cloud backup. They aren't just trying to frame the Varga syndicate, Dante. They’re framing *me* as the primary importer."
Dante didn't curse. He simply turned to Paulie and gave a single, curt wave of his hand. "Seal the northern gate. Call the crane operators down. We burn the crates on the barge before—"
The sharp, deafening *crack* of a high-caliber sniper rifle shattered the morning air.
The reinforced glass window of the catwalk office exploded inward in a hail of crystalline shrapnel.
"Down!" Dante roared.
Before Khloe could register the sound, a heavy, unyielding wall of muscle and leather crashed into her, knocking her off her feet. Dante dragged her to the industrial steel floorboards, covering her body with his own as a second shot punched a fist-sized hole through the metal siding right where her chest had been a fraction of a second earlier.
Down on the warehouse floor, hell erupted.
Automatic gunfire tore through the corrugated metal walls. The deafening chatter of assault rifles echoed like a thousand hammers striking an anvil. Paulie and the perimeter guards immediately returned fire, diving behind stacks of shipping pallets as three black SUVs smashed through the chain-link gates of the pier, their tires screaming against wet concrete.
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"Moretti’s hit squad!" Paulie shouted over the radio, his voice strained through the static. "They've got the southern perimeter flanked! Snipers on the gantry crane!"
Dante shifted his weight, his right hand drawing a customized SIG Sauer P226 from beneath his jacket. His dark eyes were burning with cold, methodical
