Read Chapter 35: The Showdown

Rain came in off the harbor in dirty sheets, washing the salt and blood from the cobblestones. Jack moved through the alley behind the warehouse district with Foley at his back, both of them breathing hard, both of them carrying the kind of silence that meant they knew what came next.

The warehouse was a three-story brick hulk overlooking the piers, its windows boarded, its loading doors gaping like a hungry mouth. Frank's men had been seen coming and going from it for two days—ever since the storm wrecked his fleet and sent him scrambling for dry ground. Desperate men stopped being careful, and Frank Malloy was the most desperate man Jack had ever known.

"He's in there," Foley said, checking his revolver. "You sure you want to do this alone?"

"I'm sure." Jack wiped rain from his eyes. His ribs screamed where the wound had festered, and something inside him shifted when he coughed, wet and wrong. He ignored it the way he'd ignored everything else these last weeks. "Wait for the shot. If you hear two, come in. If you hear one, it's done."

Foley grabbed his arm. "Jack."

"One shot."

Jack crossed the open ground to the loading door and slipped through a gap in the boards. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of salt, spilled whiskey, and the particular rot of a man who'd stopped caring about anything except the thing he wanted. Crates of liquor were stacked to the rafters, forming canyons of timber and glass. A single bare bulb hung from a wire at the center of the space, swaying slightly in the draft from the door.

Frank stood beneath it, his back to Jack, a bottle in his hand. He didn't turn around.

"I knew you'd come," Frank said, his voice ragged. "I've been waiting. Figured I'd give you the chance to do it proper, man to man, instead of having your boys shoot me in the back like you done everything else."

Jack stepped forward, boots echoing on the concrete. "It doesn't have to end this way, Frank."

"Don't." Frank turned. His face was hollow, eyes bright with something Jack didn't want to name. His coat was open, and Jack could see the pistol tucked in his belt, the handle worn smooth. "Don't stand there and give me the speech. You gonna tell me you're sorry? You gonna tell me this is all my fault? That I brought it on myself?"

"I'm going to tell you to walk away."

Frank laughed, brittle and sharp. "Walk away? Where am I supposed to walk to, Jack? You took everything. The business, the men, the respect. You took Ma's good opinion and Pa's ghost and you wrapped yourself in them like a flag while you crawled into bed with Chicago money. And now you want me to walk away?"

"I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm asking you to live."

Frank's hand drifted toward his belt. Jack saw the movement, catalogued it the way he'd catalogue a shipment manifest—weight, timing, consequence.

"You always were the smart one," Frank said. "The one who thought everything through. Used to admire that about you. Figured you'd take care of us, you know? That we'd be brothers in this like we was brothers in everything else." His fingers curled around the grip of the pistol. "But you ain't my brother no more, Jack. You're just another man who wants what I got."

"The police are closing in," Jack said, keeping his voice flat, measured. "Burke's got evidence on both of us. If you come with me now, I can get you out of the city. A boat, money, a fresh start. You take it, and no one else has to die."

Frank's eyes flickered. For a moment, Jack saw the boy he'd grown up with—the one who'd taught him to swim, who'd covered for him when he'd broken Ma's good china, who'd stood beside him at Pa's funeral and gripped his hand so hard it left bruises.

Then the moment passed.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Frank drew the pistol, slow and deliberate. "Me running off with my tail between my legs, so you can tell yourself you didn't have to do it. So you can be the saint and I'm the sinner who got what he deserved." He raised the gun, leveling it at Jack's chest. "I ain't giving you that, brother. Not that."

Jack didn't move. His own revolver was in his hand before Frank finished speaking, but he held it low, pointed at the floor. The distance between them was fifteen feet. The bullet would cross it in less than a heartbeat.

"Last chance," Jack said.

Frank's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "You always did talk too much."

He pulled the trigger.

The shot cracked through the warehouse like thunder, and Jack felt the bullet tear past his shoulder, close enough to burn. He moved without thinking, dropping to one knee as Frank fired again—this one going wide, ricocheting off a steel beam with a scream of lead. Frank was rushing forward, firing a third time, and Jack saw the muzzle flash and knew he wasn't going to get out of the way.

He squeezed his own trigger.

The round took Frank in the chest. He stopped mid-stride, eyes going wide with surprise—not pain, just surprise, like he hadn't actually believed it would come to this. The pistol slipped from his fingers and clattered on the concrete. He looked down at the blooming red stain spreading across his shirt, then back up at Jack.

"Jack," he said, and it was the old voice, the boy's voice, the one that had called him to dinner and to the docks and to every scrap they'd ever fought together. "Jack, it hurts."

Jack caught him before he hit the ground. Lowered him gently onto the cold concrete, one hand behind Frank's head, the other pressed against the wound that was pumping blood between his fingers. Frank's breath came in wet, rattling gasps.

"I'm sorry," Jack said, the words coming out raw and broken. "I'm sorry, Frank. I'm sorry."

Frank's hand found Jack's wrist and gripped it with surprising strength. His eyes were already going distant, filming over like the surface of the harbor at dawn.

"Don't," Frank whispered. "Don't you tell Ma I cried."

Jack held him as the light went out of his brother's eyes, as the grip loosened and the body went slack. He stayed there on his knees in the puddle of blood and rain water, holding Frank's head in his hands, and the silence of the warehouse pressed in around him like a shroud.

Foley's footsteps echoed from the door. "Jack?"

Jack didn't answer. He gently closed Frank's eyes, then sat back, staring at the face of the boy he'd bled for, fought for, and finally killed.

"He's gone," Jack said. His voice was flat, empty. "It's done."