Chapter 8 - Confrontation at the Pier
"You bitch!" Marco roared.
He drew a suppressed pistol from his jacket, abandoning all sanity as his entire empire crumbled around him in seconds. Panic erupted through the Harbor Club as guests screamed and ducked behind mahogany tables.
Damiano moved with lightning speed, stepping directly in front of Penelope and raising his arm to deflect Marco’s aim.
BANG.
A gunshot echoed through the grand ballroom. Damiano winced as a bullet grazed his shoulder, but he slammed his weight into Marco, sending the traitor crashing through a glass display case onto the marble floor.
Marco scrambled to his feet, bleeding from the face, and bolted out the rear terrace doors toward the private docks on Lake Michigan.
"Damiano!" Penelope ran to his side, her hands instantly checking his shoulder. "You're hit!"
"It's a flesh wound," Damiano gritted out, his face pale but his eyes burning with fury. "Stay here!"
"Not a chance!" Penelope picked up her gown's heavy skirt and ran with him out into the freezing night air.
The storm was howling off Lake Michigan, rain whipping across the slippery wooden planks of the private pier. Marco was frantically untying a high-powered speedboat at the end of the dock.
"Marco!" Damiano shouted over the roar of the wind and waves.
Marco turned, aiming his gun with shaking hands. "Stay back! Both of you! I have forty million in offshore bearer bonds! I'll kill you both and start over in Dubai!"
"You don't have forty million, Marco," Penelope called out, stepping up beside Damiano in the pouring rain, untroubled by the wind or the gun pointed at her chest. "I liquidated those bonds twenty minutes ago. The money was wired back to the pension funds of the dockworkers your syndicate stole from ten years ago. You are broke. You have nothing."
Marco’s eyes went wide with pure, unadulterated madness. "Then I'll settle for sending you to join your supervisor at the bottom of this lake!"
He pulled the trigger.
CLICK.
Marco pulled it again. CLICK. CLICK.
"Empty," Penelope said calmly. "I counted the rounds you fired inside the ballroom. You're out."
Marco looked down at his gun in disbelief. Before he could react, federal law enforcement vehicles with flashing blue and red lights swarmed the harbor perimeter, sirens wailing into the night sky. Tactical officers poured onto the pier, weapons raised.
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"DROP YOUR WEAPON! FBI!"
Marco dropped the useless gun, falling to his knees on the wet wood, sobbing as federal agents slammed him to the deck and slapped heavy steel handcuffs onto his wrists.
