Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
She’s mine. She’ll stay mine.
Only, I feel guilty about Lev and his father. They treated me like a son and I betrayed them in the worst manner possible. I’ll have to find a way to make it up to them one day, only I’m not sure that’ll ever happen.
Lev pulls the truck up to a booth at the entrance to the docks. The guy on shift only nods and lets us through. Typically, we’d have to have identification and shit, but the Zeitsev Bratva’s got a whole lot of connections in this part of the city, and their goods move through here like fish through water.
We drive slow through the narrow street and park in the darkness on the side of the admin building. Lev nods at me as he loads up his gun and tucks it into his jeans and we climb out together. Our footsteps slosh through puddles and echo off the steel containers. I catch glimpses of their originating ports in the dim orange light: Morocco, Sudan, Thailand, Ecuador. These have come from all over the world, only to end up in south fucking Philadelphia.
The place is oddly quiet. Even on slow days and late into the evening, there are people working here, cataloguing and checking contents, doing whatever the fuck dockworkers are supposed to do. But as we move through the narrow lanes between the massive piles, we run into nothing and nobody.
It’s fucking spooky.
“We should wait for backup,” I tell him, already fingering my gun. I’m on edge and a bad feeling crawls up my spine.
“Fuck that. I want to make sure they’re not getting away with this shit.”
“Did you tell anyone where we were going?”
“I got a team on the way.”
“Then we should wait.” I grab his arm, but he wrenches himself away, glaring death at me.
“This is your fucking problem. You’re the perfect little soldier, always playing by the rules, but I’m sick of that shit.”
“I break the rules when it makes sense. Right now, it doesn’t. We can post up here and if the Italians are nearby, we’ll stop them before they can escape.”
“How about you do that then? I always knew you were a stuck-up perfectionist, but I didn’t know you were a coward.”
I step toward him as a spike of rage runs through me. How dare this bastard call me a coward of all things? I’ve risked my life for him and for his brother a dozen times over, and I’ll keep on putting myself in danger because that’s what I do.
But there’s a difference between doing the hard thing and being a reckless idiot.
Lev turns and storms off. I stand there for a beat, cursing him and myself. Then I start texting anyone that might be coming until I get a picture of the guys involved. Lev’s got two teams on their way, the nearest still five minutes out, which isn’t good. Why the hell did I let him drive us here in the first place without waiting for muscle? If Marino’s actually moving on our containers, he’s going to move in force. The two of us can’t do shit on our own.
But Lev’s not slowing down and I’m not about to let him go in alone.
He’s gone around a corner up ahead by the time I start moving to catch up, annoyed with this whole stupid operation. I’ve been so distracted by thinking about Natalya that I’m only right now realizing that Lev’s on some kind of suicidal fucking mission to prove himself.
As I get closer to a junction up ahead, I hear a shout. It’s an angry yell, not really words, and I start running. I’m not sure what’s going down but we’re close to our containers and the worst-case scenario plays through my head.
And I’m fucking right.
There’s a glut of people standing in a clearing up ahead. A ring of light makes it look like a glowing oasis in the center of an otherwise dark and claustrophobic group of containers. I don’t know the men, but I recognize a voice.
It’s Lev, telling them to go fuck themselves.
I rip my gun from my waistband and consider my options. I can wait for backup, but Lev will be dead by then. I can charge into the fray, but that’s probably not going to end well, considering I’m outnumbered big time.
If I die here, my kid grows up with a father.
But if I don’t do something, I’ll lose Lev, the only friend I have left in the world.
It’s a horrible moment of indecision. Widow Natalya or save her brother. Risk myself or stay alive for my kid.
With a curse, I turn to the containers and start climbing. I’m fast and as quiet as I can, and fortunately they all have ladders built into their sides to let workers scale them when needed. I get to the top of the three-container stack and sprint to the far end, trying to be as quiet as I can, before dropping down to my belly and crawling the rest of the way.