Chapter 5 - The Snake at the Gate
The heavy black steel toolbox was set on my lap five minutes later. It was covered in grease, salt rust, and industrial dust from the naval yards.
I didn't open it in the precinct. We returned immediately to the Suburban, the heavy doors slamming shut against the cold coastal rain.
"Drive," I commanded. "Back to The Perch."
Elena sat across from me, staring at the rusted toolbox resting on my lap like it was a live bomb. "Is it really in there?"
I pulled a heavy screwdriver from my pocket, jammed it beneath the rusted latch of the lower tray, and popped the steel lock with a sharp, metallic SNAP.
Inside the lower compartment, tucked beneath a set of grease-stained wrenches and spark plugs, was a heavy black metal drive—no larger than a deck of cards—encased in a reinforced titanium housing. Engraved on the side were the initials E.V. - Project Lazarus.
I held the drive in my hand. It felt cold, heavy, and pregnant with an impossible future.
"This is it," I whispered.
Suddenly, the Suburban slammed on its brakes.
The tires shrieked against the wet asphalt. I was thrown forward against my seatbelt, the heavy toolbox sliding off my lap onto the carpeted floor with a loud clang. Elena let out a terrified scream as the vehicle skidded to a violent halt sideways across the two-lane coastal highway.
"Vince!" I yelled, pulling myself back into an upright position. "Report!"
"Blockade!" Vince roared from the front seat, pulling a heavy silver magnum from beneath his arm. "Two cement trucks across the road! It’s a trap, Boss!"
Before the words had even cleared his mouth, the side windows of our escort sedan in front of us exploded in a hail of automatic gunfire.
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The sharp, deafening cracks of military-grade assault rifles echoed through the fog. Smoke and yellow muzzle flashes erupted from the tree line along the cliffside road.
"Down! Get down!" Vince bellowed, lunging over the seat to shove Elena onto the floorboards between the seats.
I didn't get down. I couldn't move fast enough to get down.
I sat in my high leather chair, watching through the four-inch-thick reinforced bulletproof glass of the Suburban as six men in black tactical gear and ski masks advanced out of the rain, their rifles trained directly on our vehicle.
Behind them, stepping out of a dark green Bentley parked near the cement trucks, was a man I recognized instantly.
Dominic Moretti.
The eldest son of the Moretti crime syndicate. A man with narrow, serpent-like eyes, a slicked-back ponytail, and a reputation for sadistic violence that had made him the terror of the waterfront for a decade.
Dominic walked casually through the rain, an umbrella held over his head by a broad-shouldered bodyguard. He walked up to the driver’s side of our armored Suburban, tapped the butt of his nickel-plated revolver against the glass, and smiled a cold, yellow-toothed grin.
"Caleb!" Dominic’s muffled voice came through the thick glass. "I heard a rumor down at the docks that the cripple left his castle! I didn't believe it until I saw the license plate!"
Vince raised his magnum toward the window, but I placed a heavy hand on his forearm.
"Don't," I said softly. "The glass will take small arms, but they have three men with armor-piercing rounds in those woods. If we shoot back, they'll drop a grenade under the gas tank."
I hit the button on the armrest, lowering the heavy armored window just two inches—enough for my voice to carry out into the cold Atlantic wind.
"Dominic," I said, my tone as calm as if we were discussing harbor tariffs over tea. "You're blocking my road."
Dominic let out a harsh, barking laugh, wiping a droplet of rain from his cheek. "Your road? You haven't owned this city in eight years, Marino! You've been rotting in a wheelchair while my family built the docks into a fifty-million-dollar machine!"
He leaned closer to the narrow opening, his dark eyes squinting into the dim interior of the Suburban. He spotted Elena cowering on the floorboards, then his gaze drifted to the black metal drive sitting on the seat beside me.
Dominic’s smile vanished. His face hardened into a mask of pure, murderous rage.
"You have Emil Vance’s drive," Dominic spat. "The doctor’s drive."
"I do," I said.
"Give it to me, Caleb," Dominic growled, reaching into his coat and pulling out a heavy, suppressed automatic pistol. "Give me the drive, and the widow... and I let you roll your crippled ass back up to your mansion to die in peace."
I looked at Dominic. I looked at the three armed men standing ten feet away with their rifles raised. I looked at the rain falling across the ocean.
And then, deep within the dark, dormant chambers of my spinal column, I felt it again.
A tiny, sharp, electric spark.
It didn't come from Lily this time. It came from the sheer, unadulterated fury surging through my blood—the same furious fire that had allowed me to survive the explosion that killed my wife, the same fire that had built an empire out of blood and stone.
My right foot, resting flat against the floorboards of the Suburban, flexed.
The toes dug firmly into the carpet.
"Dominic," I said, my voice dropping so low the gangster had to lean his ear closer to the narrow window gap to hear it.
"What?" Dominic snarled.
"You forgot one thing about the Harbor King."
"Yeah? What’s that?"
May you like
"I don't roll," I whispered.
I reached out, grabbed the door handle of the heavy armored Suburban, and slammed my shoulder against the four-hundred-pound steel door with everything I had.
