Chapter 16 - The Price of Loyalty
The rear loading dock of Pier 42 opened directly onto the freezing, choppy waters of the East River. Snow whipped across the wooden slips, where a sleek, twin-engine armored speedboat sat idling in the dark water, its navigation lights dark to avoid maritime detection.
Damian Thorne stumbled out onto the icy dock, clutching his bleeding left arm where one of Marcus’s sniper rounds had grazed him during the ambush. He was frantic, his arrogant composure entirely destroyed as he fumbled for the boat’s mooring keys with shaking, blood-stained fingers.
“Going somewhere, brother?”
Damian froze, the keys dropping from his hand and clattering onto the icy wood.
He turned around slowly. Julian stood at the entrance of the loading dock, his tactical handgun lowered at his side, his broad chest rising and falling rhythmically in the freezing winter air. The wind whipped his dark hair across his forehead, his blue eyes burning like ice-cold stars in the darkness.
“Julian,” Damian gasped, backing away toward the edge of the dock. “Let me go. The Feds are on their way! If you kill me here, you’ll be caught at the scene! We can make a deal—I have offshore accounts in Zurich that none of your auditors know about! Billions of dollars, Julian! I’ll transfer it all to you right now!”
Julian walked slowly onto the wooden dock, his heavy boots crunching on the frozen sleet. He tossed his tactical handgun aside, letting it clatter across the wood until it slid off the edge into the dark river below.
“This was never about money, Damian,” Julian said softly, stopping five feet away from his brother. “This was about loyalty. You were my blood. I gave you half of everything our father built. And you sold it out to men who would have slaughtered us both for a tax write-off.”
Damian’s eyes darted frantically around the empty dock, searching for an escape, before fixing on Julian’s unarmed stance. With a desperate, animalistic snarl, Damian pulled a concealed tactical knife from his boot and lunged forward, thrusting the serrated blade directly toward Julian’s chest.
Julian didn’t flinch.
With blinding, brutal speed born of twenty years in the syndicate trenches, Julian stepped inside the thrust, catching Damian’s wrist in a bone-crushing grip. He twisted his arm sharply, forcing Damian to drop the knife, and slammed a devastating right hook into his brother’s jaw.
Damian crashed onto the icy wood, sliding toward the edge of the slip. He scrambled to his knees, his face bruised and bleeding, reaching desperately for the discarded knife lying three feet away on the frozen planks.
Before Damian’s fingers could touch the handle, a sharp, metallic click echoed across the wind-whipped dock.
“Don’t even think about it.”
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Damian froze, looking up in shock.
Clara stood at the entrance of the loading dock, both hands wrapped tightly around the backup pistol Julian had given her, the barrel pointed directly at Damian’s forehead. Her hands weren't shaking anymore. She looked entirely fearless, a true queen standing beside her king.
