Read Chapter 13: The Warehouse Fire

The first lick of flame came through the warehouse window at 2:17 in the morning. Jack saw it from the end of the pier—a flicker of orange behind the salt-crusted glass, like a lantern left too close to a curtain. Then another window caught, and another, and by the time Danny grabbed his shoulder, the whole north wall was breathing fire.

“Who’s inside?” Jack shouted over the crackle of timbers.

“Nobody. Mickey was on watch, said he stepped out to take a piss and saw them running.” Danny’s face was pale in the glow. “Three men, maybe four. They had cans.”

Jack’s jaw tightened so hard his teeth ached. He took a step toward the burning building, but Danny blocked him.

“It’s gone, Jack. The whole shipment. Twenty-four cases of Canadian whiskey, gone.”

“Not gone,” Jack said. “Burned.”

The fire had taken the roof now, and black smoke rolled up into the night sky like a signal fire along the coast. Somewhere a bell began to clang—the harbor fire brigade, stumbling awake in their wool coats. Jack stood watching the warehouse he’d rented from the Sardine Company collapse into itself, his arms crossed, his face hot from the blaze.

He knew exactly who’d done this. His brother’s warning hadn’t been a threat. It had been a preview.

“Jack, we gotta get clear before the cops start asking questions.” Leo appeared at his other side, tugging his sleeve. “This is our building. They find us here, it’s arson investigation, possession, all of it.”

“Let them come,” Jack said.

“No.” Danny grabbed his chin, forced Jack to look at him. “You hear yourself? You lost the stash, you don’t get to lose the crew too. We walk away now, we live to fight tomorrow.”

The fire brigade’s truck rattled down the cobblestone street, horses snorting at the smoke. Jack watched the flames lick the last intact beam. Twenty-four cases—the rest of his Scotch reserves, the only stock he had left to fill Ashworth’s Friday order. It wasn’t just money going up in smoke; it was his word.

“Alright,” he said. “We go.”

They slipped through the alleys behind the waterfront, the heat of the fire following them like a ghost. When they reached Gus Moran’s stockroom—the single point of safety Jack had left—the old fixer was waiting, a cup of coffee in his hand and a grim smile on his face.

“Heard the bell,” Moran said. “Three o’clock in the morning, a fire in your warehouse. That’s a message, not an accident.”

“I know what it is.”

Jack sat on an upturned crate, scrubbed his hands through his hair. The others filed in behind him, Mickey hovering near the door like he expected an ambush. Leo paced. Danny stood guard.

Moran studied Jack for a long moment. “You lost your shipment. Your brother knows he can hit you anywhere. And you got a contract with the Ashworths that’s going to be dry by Friday.”

“I’m aware.”

“The question is—” Moran set his coffee down and leaned forward—“what do you do now? You run at Frank hot-headed, after his trucks with a bat, you start a street war that brings the Federal men down on all of us. You do nothing, you look weak, and every dealer in Providence starts knocking at your door to renegotiate.”

Jack lifted his head. “So what do I do?”

Moran smiled. “You do what I would do. You make him pay, but you make him pay smart. Bleed him without showing your face. Make it so he doesn’t know you’re coming until the knife’s already in.”

The words landed. Jack’s mind began to shift, the heat in his chest cooling into something harder. Strategy. It had always been his gift, the thing that separated him from dockhands who swung first and thought never. Frank had the muscle. Jack had the mind.

He thought of Callahan, the Harbor Commission letterhead sitting in his desk. He thought of Patrick’s letter—the one from the brother who’d died in France, the one thing Jack had never shown anyone. Frank didn’t know he had it. Frank didn’t know it existed.

But that was a card too precious to burn on a warehouse fire.

“Let me think,” Jack said.

Moran nodded, pleased. “You got a day. Maybe two, before the streets talk and the sharks circle.”

Jack left the stockroom before dawn, walked the waterfront alone, watching the last smoke drift up from the blackened skeleton of his warehouse. He passed the spot where Frank had swung on him two nights ago, the print of his brother’s fist still like a brand on his cheekbone.

Frank had declared war. Stealing the stash was one thing—a thief’s move, underhanded and ugly. But burning it? That was a message for the whole harbor: Jack Malloy couldn’t even protect his own goods.

Jack stopped at the end of the pier, looked out at the gray Atlantic. His brother was out there somewhere, celebrating with the Morettis, thinking he’d won the first round.

The first round. That was what mattered. Frank didn’t understand that this was a longer game.

By the time the sun crested the water, Jack knew exactly what he was going to do. The front would come through Russo’s—an address, a schedule, a little money to grease the right wheel. The Morettis ran their trucks on a clockwork of habit, same roads, same times. Frank’s boastful confidence meant he wasn’t careful.

Frank’s next shipment came down from Boston on Thursday night. Jack knew the route—he’d learned it years ago, when they were boys and would swim out to watch the rumrunners unload. Frank would take the coast road to the north side, a single truck, followed by a sedan with two guards.

One truck. Two guards. And soon, one less shipment for the Malloy name.

Jack turned back toward the city. The fire was out now, just smoke and wet ash, but the damage had been done—not just to his inventory, but to his credibility. By tomorrow morning, everyone on the dock would know that Jack Malloy had been hit. By next week, either he’d have struck back, or he’d be a cautionary tale.

He paused at Russo’s to file a scribbled note through the crossword, a coded request to reserve a truck. Then he started up the hill toward Gus Moran’s parlor.

Molly was waiting on the corner, arms folded against the morning chill. She fell into step beside him without a word, walked with him a full block before she spoke.

“I heard,” she said.

“Everyone heard.”

“You didn’t come find me.”

Jack glanced at her. “Didn’t know I was supposed to.”

“You set a fire in your own head, you don’t share it, you burn alone.” She said it flat, like a fact. “Whatever you’re planning, I can help. I’ve got access to things you don’t.”

“Moran’s already helping.”

“Moran takes a cut from everything you do.” Molly stopped walking. “I just want to see you win.”

Jack looked at her—the way she stood with her weight on both feet, like she was ready to walk through fire with him. He didn’t know why she was loyal, but he was too tired and too desperate to question it.

“Thursday night,” he said. “Frank’s getting a shipment from Boston. I’m going to take it.”

Molly’s lips curved into a slow smile. “Now we’re talking.”

Jack followed her up the street, the plan already hardening in his chest, the first clean thought he’d had since smoke filled the sky.

His brother had taken everything. But Frank had made one mistake.

He’d left Jack alive to plan the response.