Chapter 8 - Into the Fire
I woke up tied to a heavy steel chair in an abandoned shipping warehouse that smelled of rust, diesel fuel, and stagnant river water.
A single fluorescent bulb flickered overhead, buzzing like an angry hornet.
My head pounded with a vicious migraine from the chloroform. Blood trickled down my temple from a minor cut. I tested the ropes binding my wrists behind the chair; they were thick nylon, knotted with professional precision.
"Ah, the sleeping beauty awakens," a voice purred.
Derek stepped into the light. His left arm was wrapped in a thick, bloody medical sling, his face pale and contorted with agony and venomous hatred. Beside him stood Julian Vance, holding an iron pipe, looking nervous.
"Derek," I rasped, my throat raw. "You're a dead man. When Ethan finds you—"
Derek moved with startling violence, his good hand striking across my face. The force of the slap whipped my head around, the metallic taste of blood bursting across my tongue.
"Ethan isn't finding anything!" Derek spat, leaning down until his spit hit my cheek. "Your father and Russo have boxed him in at the estate. He’s either dead or bleeding out in his own driveway. And you... you’re my bargaining chip to ensure Vincent hands over the South Side shipping empire to me."
"My father won't give you anything," I said coldly, spitting blood onto the concrete floor at his feet. "He betrayed me; he’ll betray you before sunrise."
"Shut up!" Derek yelled, his sanity clearly slipping under the influence of pain and painkillers. He pulled a serrated hunting knife from his belt, holding the cold steel against the skin of my throat. "Maybe I don't wait for Vincent. Maybe I send Ethan a piece of you first. A little finger? An ear?"
"Touch her again, Derek, and I won't leave enough of you to bury."
The voice didn't come from the warehouse doors. It came from the rafters.
Julian gasped, raising his weapon toward the shadows above.
A flash of silenced gunfire hissed through the darkness. Julian took a round directly to the throat, collapsing to the floor with a wet gurgle, kicking once before lying still.
Derek shrieked, backing away, using me as a human shield, pressing the blade hard against my windpipe. "Who's there?! Russo! Get in here!"
A heavy thud echoed across the concrete as a figure dropped down from a structural steel beam twenty feet above.
Ethan Carter stood up from a crouch.
He looked like death incarnate. His clothes were shredded, his face streaked with soot and blood, a makeshift tourniquet tied tightly around his ribs where his wound had reopened. In his hands, he held twin suppressed tactical pistols. His gray eyes were devoid of mercy, devoid of humanity.
He had walked through an army to get here.
"Ethan," I breathed, tears of relief burning my eyes despite the knife digging into my neck.
"Let her go, Derek," Ethan said softly. The quietness of his tone was far more terrifying than any scream.
"Take one step and I open her throat!" Derek screamed, his hand trembling violently, pressing the blade deeper until a bead of blood welled beneath the steel. "Drop the guns! Drop them, or she dies!"
Ethan stopped ten paces away.
Slowly, deliberately, Ethan knelt and set both pistols on the filthy concrete. He raised his hands, stepping forward.
"You win, Derek," Ethan said, his voice entirely devoid of panic. "Take me. Let her walk."
Derek laughed, a shrill, hysterical sound of triumph. "Look at the great Ethan Carter! On his knees for a Moretti girl! You fool. I'm going to kill you both."
In that split second, as Derek shifted his weight to gloat, I remembered what I was. I was Vincent Moretti’s daughter, raised in the shadows of Chicago's most ruthless men. I was not a victim.
I slammed the back of my head violently against Derek’s broken nose.
The crunch of cartilage was sickeningly loud. Derek shrieked in pain, his knife slipping away from my throat as he stumbled backward, clutching his face.
"Ethan!" I screamed.
Ethan didn't need another second.
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He moved like lightning. Pulling a combat knife from his boot, Ethan crossed the distance in two strides, grabbing Derek by the collar and driving him backward onto the concrete floor.
***
