Chapter 16 Alex
ALEX
There was something cold and sharp in the air, an energy I recognized after I’d been born and raised in the world of organized crime.
When I was still with the Antonovs, this kind of energy spelled bad news for me.
But I’d always had a false sense of security with the Buteras, like because I’d escaped the family I’d been born into, found my own way with a different organized crime syndicate, I was invincible.
I knew it wasn’t true when I heard the first crack of a gunshot in the night.
The sound sliced through the fog rolling off the harbor, turning every shadow into a threat.
I dove behind a stack of metal shipping crates just as another shot shattered a bulb overhead, raining glass on the concrete.
Voices broke through, shouts in rough Russian I could still understand even though I hadn’t spoken it in years.
“Antonovs,” I muttered under my breath, the name tasting like rust and old betrayal.
Beside me, one of the Butera soldiers—Nico, a younger cousin of Jonathan’s—pressed his back to the crate, breathing hard.
He seemed to appear out of nowhere.
It was something the kid excelled in, something that made him valuable to the family.
“They’re everywhere,” he hissed. “Somebody tipped them off.”
I’d drawn the same conclusion myself already.
I peeked around the crate’s edge long enough to confirm that there was no easy route out of trouble here.
My former family had come prepared, fanning out along the pier with military precision.
Their silhouettes moved between the cranes and pallets like ghosts, but I knew their rhythm, their tells, their patterns. I’d been trained in the same school of brutality.
That familiarity should have made me calm. Should’ve sent me to that cold, quiet place I’d learned to live in years ago.
It didn’t. Not tonight. Because now, all I could think about was Frankie.
Frankie’s voice, soft but fearless.
Frankie’s lips when I last kissed her—I should’ve done it more, less restrained, given her everything she deserved. Frankie, who’d begun to unravel the wires holding my heart shut.
If I died here, if one of my former brothers put a bullet in me, she’d think I’d just disappeared into the night like the man I’d been before her.
No. The word carved itself into my thoughts.
A burst of automatic fire sent us ducking. Nico cursed. I raised my own trusty pistol, its barrel elongated by the illegal silencer. I aimed, fired twice.
One Antonov dropped behind a forklift, out of sight. Maybe I hit him. Maybe he only fell. It didn’t matter. More of them were coming.
“Alex!” someone shouted from across the loading bay—Marco, another Butera man who’d been loyal, dedicated to our family for years. “We’re pinned in, man! We need to fall back!”
I motioned for Nico to move, and we sprinted low across the pier, weaving between cargo pallets. Bullets sparked off metal around us, the impacts reverberating through my ears, my skull.
I should have been used to this. I’d lived my whole life knowing gunfire the same way people knew thunderstorms.
But tonight, every shot felt personal, aimed at cutting the thread that still tethered me to Frankie, and I felt the returning chill of fear I’d long since suppressed.
I slid behind a piece of heavy machinery, breath clouding in the cold night air. “We can’t keep this position,” I muttered.
“No kidding,” Marco replied dryly from the opposite side.
Then another sharp crack. A strangled noise followed.
I turned in time to see Nico stagger, clutching his chest. His gun slipped from his hand as his knees hit the ground.
I reached him before he fully collapsed, catching his shoulders and lowering him down with less force than gravity would have. His eyes were wild at first, searching the dark, then locking onto mine.
“Alex.” His voice was barely a rasp.
“You’re okay,” I lied, pressing my hand over the spreading warmth on his shirt. Too much. Too fast. “Stay with me.”
His breathing hitched. His fingers dug weakly into my arm. And then—I saw it. The moment the light inside him dimmed, flickering out. Extinguished forever.
Christ, he was so young.
I’d seen death before. Delivered it, even. But something about Nico fading in my hands knocked the air from my chest. Maybe because he’d trusted me.
Maybe because Frankie had made me remember what it felt like to value another human being’s life. But then a shout ripped me back to the present—my own, ordering the men around me to fall into line. “Move!”
The Antonovs were pushing forward.
I lowered Nico gently to the ground, left him there despite everything in me yelling not to. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure who I was apologizing to.
“We’re abandoning the cargo,” I barked to the others. “Now. We get the fuck out, or we die here.”
Marco didn’t argue. Another soldier fell in behind us as we moved, firing cover shots toward the encroaching shadows. The Antonovs advanced, relentless as ever. Just the way they’d trained me to be.
We sprinted toward the line of dark cars waiting along the far end of the pier.
A bullet grazed my side—the heat and sting hitting a split second later. It knocked a grunt out of me, but I kept going.
Not dying here. Not before seeing Frankie again.
The three of us dove behind a stack of pallets as another barrage cut through the air. “Cars are thirty yards out,” Marco called. “You good, Alex?”
I pressed a hand to my side. Warmth seeped between my fingers. “Fine.” Not quite a lie. The wound burned, but I could breathe. I could move.
“On my mark,” I said, peering over the pallet. The Antonovs were regrouping for another push. If we didn’t go now, we’d never go at all.
I thought of Frankie one more time—her soft eyes that told me without words that I wasn’t as cold as I pretended to be. The way her lips had felt when she kissed away every instinct I’d ever had to pull back.
I wanted more of that. Needed more of her.
“Now!” I shouted.
We bolted.
Gunfire exploded again, lighting up the night. I felt the air shift as bullets zipped past my shoulders. In the distance, sirens started, but we’d be long gone before any cops could show up. One shot clipped the edge of the pallet behind me. Another pinged off the hood of a car as we reached it.
Marco wrenched open the driver’s door. “Get in!”
I yanked open the back door and dove inside. Another man slid in beside me. Tires screeched as Marco slammed the accelerator. The car lurched forward, fishtailing slightly before gaining traction and jetting away to freedom.
Shots chased us down the road, but the distance widened. The pier became a blur of metal and shadow behind us.
Only then did the adrenaline crash enough for me to feel the full throb of the wound at my side. My shirt was sticking to my skin.
I leaned back, breathing hard. The night outside the windows felt colder now, emptier.
“Nico?” Marco asked quietly, eyes on the road.
I swallowed. “Gone.”
Silence filled the car, heavy and thick.
I reached into my pocket with a shaky hand, pulling out my phone. My fingers were slick, and it took longer than it should have to unlock the screen, type a message to Jonathan and Devin. Short. Direct.
Alex: Nico’s dead. Cargo lost. Ambush at 9.
I hit send.
Then the world tilted just slightly, darkening at the edges, and I focused on my next breath, my next second. Each second that brought me closer to the woman I wanted to see again.