Chapter 17 - Pier 19
Pier 19 was a maze of stacked containers, cranes, and black river water.
Rain hit the steel roofs like handfuls of gravel.
Dominic arrived with one SUV.
No visible backup.
That was what Pike demanded.
What Pike did not know was that Vincent had placed men three blocks away and fed their locations through silent earpieces.
Sofia sat in the back seat.
Hannah sat beside her.
Dominic turned around.
"Neither of you gets out until I say."
Hannah opened her door.
"Still not working."
Sofia almost smiled.
They walked together toward the lit center of the pier.
Sebastian was tied to a chair under a hanging work lamp.
His face was bruised.
Owen Pike stood behind him holding a pistol.
He was forty, broad-shouldered, with the split-crown tattoo visible above his glove.
"Ledger," Pike called.
Dominic held it up.
"Girls first."
"Not how this works."
Sofia stepped into the light.
Pike's smile vanished.
"You should be dead."
"A lot of people tried."
Hannah scanned the pier.
No container in sight.
She heard a faint metallic bang from the water side.
"Dominic," she whispered.
He heard it too.
Pike aimed at Sofia.
"Your statement destroyed everything. Marlow panicked. Sebastian stopped paying. Everybody started cutting loose ends. My brother died because your family needed silence."
Sebastian coughed. "Your brother tried to extort us."
Pike pistol-whipped him.
Hannah flinched.
Dominic did not.
"The girls had nothing to do with that."
"Neither did my brother's children. They grew up without a father."
"So you make mine grow up without theirs?"
Pike smiled. "Maybe without anybody."
A horn sounded from the river.
Hannah heard another bang.
Closer.
Below the pier, a container was suspended by a crane cable, half-submerged.
Lily and Emma were inside.
Water reached the bottom seam.
Hannah's heart stopped.
Dominic saw it.
Pike did too.
"Fifty minutes was generous," Pike said. "But I got bored."
He raised a remote control.
"This button drops the container."
Sofia stepped forward.
"Then take me instead."
"Sofia," Dominic warned.
"He wants someone to pay. Let it be me."
Pike laughed.
"You always did think you were the brave one."
Hannah moved one inch to the left.
Vincent's voice whispered in Dominic's earpiece.
"We have a shot, but not the remote."
Dominic looked at Hannah.
She understood.
The remote was the problem.
So Hannah did the only thing nobody expected.
She slapped Sofia.
Hard.
Everyone froze.
Sofia stared at her.
Pike blinked.
Hannah screamed, "You ruined my life!"
Then she lunged at her sister.
Pike's attention shifted.
For one second.
May you like
It was enough.
Dominic fired.
