Read Chapter 20: The Rescue

The warehouse sat at the end of a dead street off the fish market, a rusted hulk of corrugated iron and salt-rotted timber. Jack killed the truck's engine a block out and went the rest on foot, the snapped half of Molly's locket warm in his palm.

Two men stood at the loading bay, passing a bottle between them. Neither looked like they expected trouble. That was their mistake.

Jack came up fast behind the first one, hooked an arm around his throat, and dragged him into the shadows before the second man registered anything was wrong. A hard crack of the skull against the brick corner and the first man went limp. Jack stripped him of a snub-nosed revolver and pressed his back to the wall.

The second man called out something in Italian. Got no answer. He took a step toward the corner, and Jack swung the revolver into his temple. The man dropped like a sack of cement.

Inside, the warehouse was a cathedral of crates and fishing nets, pale light spilling through the high windows. The air smelled of ammonia and old blood. Jack moved with the careful patience of a man who'd spent years knowing where the foreman was, where the guards were, when to breathe.

A voice from above. "You're early."

Frank Russo leaned over a catwalk railing fifty feet away, a cigarette burning between his fingers. Down below, at the center of the floor, Molly sat bound to a chair—her dark hair plastered to her face, a bruise blooming along her jaw, but her eyes sharp and furious when she saw him.

"Jack," she said. The word was a warning and a prayer both.

"Let her go, Frank." Jack kept the revolver low, at his side. "This is between us."

Frank laughed—a hollow, rattling sound. "You think I planned this? Your girl walked into my place asking questions. My boys just made sure she stayed for the conversation." He tapped ash over the rail. "You cost me a lot of money, little brother. The Sullivan warehouse. The Palmetto job. The cash that should've come from your grandfather's will. All of it gone because you couldn't keep your nose out of my business."

"Your business was my birthright before you sold it out to Moran."

Frank's face tightened. For a moment, Jack saw the brother he remembered—the one who'd taught him to throw a punch on the docks, who'd shared a bunk when the boarding house froze over. Then it passed.

"You want her?" Frank flicked the cigarette. It arced down, sparked off the concrete. "Then come get her. But you'll have to get through Marco and DeLuca first."

Three other men emerged from the shadows behind Molly. One had a pipe wrench. The other two had blades.

Jack had counted six men total. Two down outside. Three here. That left Frank up top with a clear view and no reason to get his collar dirty.

"Last chance," Jack said.

Frank spread his hands. "Give me the cove. Give me the route. Walk away and I'll let you keep the girl."

It was the first time Jack had ever heard Frank offer terms. It meant the cove scared him. It meant Frank thought he was winning.

That was all Jack needed to know.

He charged.

The first thug—Marco, thick through the shoulders—swung the pipe wrench. Jack ducked, felt the air whistle over his hair, and drove his shoulder into the man's gut. They went down together in a tangle of crates. The wrench clattered away. Jack got two clean shots into Marco's jaw before a knife came at him from the side.

He rolled, felt the blade cut through his coat and sting along his ribs. Warm blood soaked his shirt. He came up with the revolver and fired once.

The knife-man screamed and grabbed his shoulder, stumbling back behind cover.

The third thug circled wide, a long fish knife in each hand. Jack was on one knee, bleeding, the revolver empty. He tossed it aside and got to his feet, reaching into his boot.

Elias had given him the hook knife the morning he'd left the cove. "For the nets," the old man had said, "but it bends a man's hand just as well."

The thug lunged. Jack stepped inside the arc of both blades and caught the man's wrist with his left hand, brought the hook knife up under the ribs. The man gasped, staggered back, knife clattering. He collapsed against a crate and slid down.

"Molly—"

She'd already worked a hand loose. "The rope's wet," she said, twisting and sawing a wrist against the chair edge. "Give me a second."

Above, Frank was moving. Jack caught the flicker of his back as he disappeared through a fire door at the end of the catwalk. The coward was running.

Jack wanted to go after him. Every nerve in his body screamed to chase—to settle what had been burning between them since their father's ledger went missing, since the first shipment Frank had skimmed, since everything soured into this.

Then Molly stood, and her hand closed over his arm. The locket's chain dangled from her free wrist.

"He's not worth the blood tonight," she said. "But he will be."

Jack looked at the fire door. Looked at her. The cut along his ribs throbbed with every heartbeat. Frank would still be in Malport in the morning. He'd still own the same sins. But Molly's fingers on his arm felt more like a promise than any contract he'd ever signed.

"You okay to walk?"

"Better than you." She looked at the blood darkening his shirt. "You're leaking."

"Just a scratch."

She pulled the chain over her head and pressed the snapped locket—now closed, both halves together—into his hand. "You finished the job. I'll finish the stitches."

They moved out through the loading bay, stepping over the two men Jack had laid out in the dark. Behind them, the warehouse settled into silence. But as Jack helped Molly into the truck and fired the engine, he saw the silhouette in the high window.

Frank, watching. Not running anymore.

Jack met his gaze and held it until the truck carried them both away.

"Your ribs first," Molly said. "Then we talk about the Chicago meeting."

"I'm not leaving you alone again."

"No," she said. "You're not."

And the truck rolled on through the wet, salt-dark streets of Malport, Jack's hand pressed to his wound, the fire door behind them a door he'd walk through again—not for revenge, not for money, but because Frank Russo had touched what was his, and that was a debt that could only be paid in blood.