CHAPTER 25
THE DEVIL’S BARGAIN
POV: IVY
The Red Hook shipyard is a graveyard of industry.
It smells of brine, rusted iron, and the decaying sludge of the East River. Towering cranes loom overhead like skeletal fingers grasping at the cloud-choked moon, their shadows stretching long and distorted across the cracked concrete.
It is freezing. The wind off the water cuts through my tactical jacket, biting at the exposed skin of my neck, but I don't zip it up. I need access to the knife strapped to my chest. I need access to the Glock holstered at my hip.
I am crouching behind a stack of rotting wooden pallets, twenty feet above the ground on a rusted catwalk.
From here, I can see everything.
I look down at the "stage" Silas has set. It’s a clearing between two massive walls of shipping containers—steel canyons painted in peeling red and blue. In the center, a single floodlight hums, casting a cone of harsh, yellow light onto the asphalt.
Silas stands at the edge of that light.
He looks small from up here. A lone figure in black, hands in his pockets, waiting for the executioner. He isn't wearing his tactical vest. He isn't holding a weapon. He is playing the part of the defeated man, the broken king coming to beg for scraps.
But I know what he’s hiding.
I look at the small, gray remote in my hand. It looks like a garage door opener, innocuous and plastic. My thumb hovers over the single red button.
Beneath the asphalt, tucked into the wheel wells of the old forklift, and magnetized to the sides of the shipping containers, are three pounds of C4 explosive.
We are standing on a powder keg. And I am the match.
"Radio check," Silas’s voice whispers in my earpiece. It’s barely a breath, intimate and steady.
"I see you," I whisper back. "I’m in position."
"If this goes sideways," he says, "if he brings more men than we counted... you blow the stack on the left first. It will create a barrier. Then you run."
"I’m not running, Silas."
"Ivy..."
"I’m not running," I repeat, my voice hard. "We finish this tonight."
He is silent for a moment. Then, I hear the ghost of a chuckle. "Stubborn."
"Devoted."
"Check your angles," he commands, shifting back to general mode. "He’s early."
I shift my gaze to the entrance of the shipyard.
Headlights.
They cut through the darkness like eyes, blindingly bright. Two black Cadillac Escalades roll slowly through the chain-link gates. They move with the heavy, arrogant weight of armored vehicles. The tires crunch loudly on the gravel.
My heart kicks against my ribs. Thump-thump-thump. The tracker on my ankle must be transmitting a frantic rhythm to the phone in Silas’s pocket, but he doesn't react. He stands perfectly still, a statue carved from night.
The cars stop. They form a V-formation at the edge of the light, blocking the exit.
Doors open.
Men spill out. Six of them. They are big, wearing expensive coats that bulge around the waistlines where their weapons are hidden. They fan out, scanning the perimeter, checking the shadows.
They don't look up. People never look up.
Then, the back door of the lead car opens.
Nikolai Sokolov steps out.
Even from this distance, he radiates a terrifying, cold charisma. He is wearing a camel-hair coat over a pristine suit, a white scarf draped casually around his neck. He looks like he’s arriving at the opera, not a derelict shipyard in Brooklyn to buy a woman.
He walks into the circle of light.
He stops ten feet from Silas.
The silence stretches, taut as a piano wire. The wind whistles through the gaps in the shipping containers, a mournful, hollow sound.
"Silas," Nikolai says. His voice carries effortlessly in the quiet night, rich and amused. "You look terrible."
"I’ve had a bad week," Silas replies. His voice is flat, defeated. He hunches his shoulders slightly, shrinking himself. It’s a masterclass in deception.
"A bad week," Nikolai chuckles. "That is an understatement. Your accounts are frozen. Your house is a ruin. Your reputation is in tatters. I hear even the rats are fleeing your ship."
"You won," Silas says. "Okay? You won. You broke the bank."
"I broke the man," Nikolai corrects him. He takes a step closer, his eyes gleaming with triumph. "I expected a fight, Vane. I expected you to go down shooting. But here you are... waiting in the cold to make a deal."
"I’m a businessman," Silas says. "I know when an asset becomes a liability."
I grit my teeth. I know it’s a line. I know it’s part of the script we wrote together in the loft two hours ago. But hearing him call me a liability still sends a spike of irrational hurt through me.
"And the girl?" Nikolai asks, looking around. "Where is the merchandise?"
"She’s in the car," Silas says, gesturing vaguely toward the shadows behind him where the Bronco is parked (empty). "She’s tied up. She’s... spirited. She might bite."
Nikolai touches his chest, wincing slightly. He remembers the knife.
"I know she bites," he says softly. "That is why I am going to enjoy pulling her teeth out. One by one."
A chill that has nothing to do with the wind sweeps over me. I grip the detonator tighter. My finger trembles on the button.
Just give the signal, Silas. Let me blow him to hell.
"I want safe passage," Silas says. "I give you the girl. You call off the Feds. You unfreeze the accounts. I leave New York. You never see me again."
"You think you are in a position to negotiate?" Nikolai sneers. "I could kill you right now and take her."
"You could," Silas agrees. "But then you don't get the codes."
"Codes?"
"The encryption keys to the offshore accounts," Silas lies. "I moved the liquid assets before you froze the mains. Fifty million. It’s locked in a cloud server. I die, the key dies. You get the girl, but you lose the money."
Nikolai pauses. Greed wars with bloodlust on his face. He is a predator, but he is also a businessman. Fifty million is not a sum he can ignore, even for revenge.
"Bring her out," Nikolai commands.
"The passage," Silas insists. "I want a jet waiting at Teterboro."
"Bring her out!" Nikolai roars, his patience snapping. "Or my men will drag you behind the car until there is nothing left of you to negotiate!"
He signals to his guards. Three of them step forward, hands reaching into their coats, drawing submachine guns.
Silas holds up his hands in surrender.
"Fine," he says. "Fine. You win."
He turns toward the darkness where I’m supposedly waiting.
He checks his watch.
It is 11:59 PM.
"Nikolai," Silas says, turning back. His voice changes. The defeat vanishes. The hunch in his shoulders straightens. The predator returns. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Nikolai asks, frowning.
"The silence."
Nikolai looks confused. "What are you talking about?"
"It’s the sound of your phone not ringing," Silas says. "Which is strange. Because usually, when a man’s empire is burning to the ground, his phone rings off the hook."
Nikolai stares at him. "You are delirious."
Riiiing.
The sound cuts through the air.
It comes from Nikolai’s pocket.
He freezes.
Riiiing.
He pulls the phone out. He looks at the screen. His expression shifts from arrogance to confusion.
He answers. "What?"
I watch his face. Even from twenty feet up, I see the color drain from his skin.
"What do you mean 'fire'?" he barks. "Where? The warehouse? Queens? What about the club?"
He listens for another second.
"All of them?" he whispers.
He lowers the phone slowly. He looks at Silas with dawning horror.
"What did you do?" Nikolai whispers.
"I bought a new army," Silas says, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "With your money."
Silas steps forward. He isn't shrinking anymore. He is expanding, filling the space with his darkness.
"While you were busy chasing me," Silas says, "the Triads took your distribution center in Chinatown. The Yardies burned your stash houses in the Bronx. And the Latin Kings... well, they just drove a truck bomb into your headquarters in Brighton Beach."
"You lie," Nikolai hisses.
"Check your phone again," Silas suggests.
Another phone rings. This time it belongs to the head of his security detail. Then another.
Panic ripples through the guards. They look at their phones. They look at each other. They are realizing that the paycheck they were promised might not exist anymore.
"Kill him!" Nikolai screams, pointing a shaking finger at Silas. "Kill him now!"
"Ivy," Silas says calmly into the comms. "Light it up."
I press the button.
BOOM.
The world explodes.
The charge on the left stack of shipping containers detonates.
It is a concussive force that punches the air from my lungs. The metal container groans, twists, and tips over with a deafening screech of tearing steel.
It crashes down onto the asphalt, creating a massive wall of metal between Nikolai and three of his guards.
Dust and smoke billow up, choking the floodlight.
"Flash out!" I scream into the mic.
Silas drops to the ground, covering his eyes.
I throw the flashbang grenade I had clipped to my belt. It arcs through the air and lands in the center of the confusion.
BANG.
A blinding white light sears the retina of anyone looking. The guards scream, blinded, firing blindly into the smoke.
Silas moves.
He rolls, drawing his gun from the holster on his thigh. He fires from the prone position.
Pop. Pop.
Two of the guards on his side of the barrier drop.
I don't just watch. I act.
I raise my Glock. I rest my arms on the railing of the catwalk to steady my aim.
I see a guard trying to flank Silas. He’s moving through the smoke, raising a shotgun.
I take a breath. I find the front sight.
Squeeze.
The gun kicks in my hand.
The guard jerks, clutching his shoulder, spinning around. I fire again. He goes down.
"Sniper!" someone yells. "Up high!"
Bullets ping against the metal catwalk near my head. sparks fly.
I duck, pressing myself flat against the rusted grate. My heart is hammering a drum solo against the metal.
"Silas!" I yell into the comms. "I’m pinned!"