15. Max
MAX
Valentina tells us to stay away from the fuel, then fires once through the storage-door gap and drops the man trying to flank the corridor.
The shot changes everything. Men who were advancing in a loose line break toward cover, two behind a pickup near the gate and three behind stacked maintenance crates on the loading apron.
A fourth disappears between dry-docked boats.
The marina is awake now. Someone shouts from the office, an engine turns over near the public slips, and the waterfront beyond the service yard keeps moving because most people have no idea a private war just started fifty yards from their fishing gear.
I am on the floor with three notebooks pressed against my ribs and a handgun in my other hand. Breakfast was never supposed to end in a marina gunfight.
“West side,” Valentina says. “They will push us toward the drums.”
Calder shifts behind a support column inside the corridor. “Why?”
“Because I wrote the procedure.”
Moreno says, “Later.”
“Good plan.”
Valentina points toward the boat lift visible through the side opening. The yellow control post is only six yards from her side of the corridor, but those six yards are open enough to make them expensive.
“Max, keep the notebooks moving if we have to fall back.”
“I was hoping for a glamorous assignment.”
“You are holding three ledgers that can ruin several criminal careers.”
“When you say it that way, I feel valued.”
Moreno leans out, fires twice, and forces the men behind the crates lower. Calder calls, “Three seconds.”
Valentina moves. I stay close enough to cover her with the waterproof case pinned to my ribs.
A round strikes the concrete behind her bad foot.
Another punches through the metal siding above my shoulder.
She reaches the yellow post, throws the green lever down, and slaps the red switch without stopping to check whether anyone approves.
The suspended boat over the center lane begins descending.
The suspended boat descends slowly, which is enough to force everyone on the apron to recalculate sightlines. The attackers move exactly where Valentina predicted, with two men shifting toward the east lane to avoid being cut off. Calder sees it before I do.
“Moreno, hold. Valentina, left.”
He fires at the pickup’s front tire. The impact makes the man behind it flinch toward the rear quarter panel, and Valentina uses the movement to hit him in the shoulder. Moreno leaves cover.
He closes the distance to the first stack of crates while the lowering boat blocks half the yard. One attacker comes around the corner, too close to use his rifle cleanly. Moreno catches the barrel, drives it aside, and puts the man into the concrete hard enough that I feel it from across the lane.
I have always understood why strangers are afraid of my brother. Sometimes I simply forget until he reminds me.
“Max!” Valentina yells.
A man is moving behind the office roofline. I duck as a shot cracks over the post. The notebooks hit the ground under me, still inside the waterproof case, and I fire toward the muzzle flash without a clear target. The shooter disappears.
Valentina is already changing magazines. “Second team. Roof and east gate.”
“How many?” Calder asks.
“Unknown.”
A white panel van rolls through the service gate too fast. I see the driver, one passenger, then the side door opens.
“Four more,” I call.
The van is not coming for us. It is coming to seal the exit.
Valentina says, “They are splitting the lane.”
I pick up the case and sprint behind the nearest boat cradle.
The metal frame blocks the roof angle while leaving me exposed to the van, so I stay low and listen for Moreno to my right.
Calder remains at the corridor mouth, and Valentina has already moved behind a maintenance cart before the attackers can pin us inside the unit.
“Fuel drums are a funnel,” she says. “They want us between the blue stacks and the south wall.”
Calder answers, “Then we don’t go south.”
“They will make us.”
“No. We make them adjust.”
Valentina looks toward the control panel beside me. “Boat lift can travel sideways too.”
I glance at the second switch bank. “You could have mentioned that.”
“I was busy getting shot at.”
“Selfish.”
Her mouth almost moves before another round hits the maintenance cart. I hit the lateral control.
The suspended boat travels along the rail toward the east lane and forces the attackers to scramble for new angles. Before the van can clear the moving hull, Calder fires low through the windshield, driving the driver down while the passenger bails out.
Moreno appears behind the pickup and drags the wounded attacker away from his rifle. He could kill him. Instead he cuffs the man’s wrist too the axle because Calder said we need someone alive.
That restraint lasts exactly until another shooter aims at Valentina. Moreno shoots him first. I hear Valentina curse and see her attention shift upward. The roof shooter is back.
He has a better angle now, prone behind the office parapet. His rifle moves toward Moreno, who cannot see him from the ground because the pickup blocks his view.
“Moreno!” I shout.
Valentina fires before he turns. Her first shot chips concrete beside the shooter’s hand. Her second hits his upper arm. He recoils, drops the rifle, and disappears behind the roofline. Moreno looks at her.
She says, “Later.”
He nods and keeps moving. A round tears through the side of the boat cradle near my shoulder. I return to the immediate problem. The man who fired is behind the blue drums.
The fuel drums give the attackers useful cover because every return shot risks hitting something volatile. They can advance behind the blue stacks while we keep adjusting our angles away from the fuel. I cannot outshoot the problem from my angle. So I stand up.
“Hey!”
The nearest attacker reacts when I call out. I lift the waterproof case high enough to make the bait obvious.
I wave the waterproof case. “You came for this?”
Calder says, very calmly, “Max.”
“I have a plan.”
“That sentence has never reassured me.”
The attacker behind the drums leans out farther.
Another man shifts near the van. The second team gives itself away when both men adjust toward the route I am pretending to choose.
I take three deliberate steps toward the public-slip side, let them commit to the expectation, and reverse toward cover before either shooter can settle.
The man near the van points. “Cut him off.”
Two shooters break toward the route I offered them. I drop behind the boat cradle before they can settle their aim.
From behind the cradle, I call, “Second team is east. They’re chasing movement and leaving Calder uncovered.”
Valentina immediately understands. “They think he is command.”
“He is command,” Moreno says.
“They think command stays put.”
Calder leaves the corridor and crosses west behind the lowering boat, reaching the angle the second team abandoned to stop me. Once both men commit to the east lane, he shoots the closer one in the leg and drives the other behind the van.
“Gate is open,” he calls.
Valentina checks the open gate while keeping her weapon up. The sedan is closer to her than it is to any of us.
Her injured foot would slow the run, yet the route itself is clear and her car is reachable. She has enough space to take it before any of us could catch her. The path between Valentina and the gate stays empty until the gunshot meant for me changes her direction.
A bullet cuts along my ribs and knocks me down behind the cradle. Heat spreads under my shirt before pain catches up.
“Max!”
Valentina’s shout reaches me before the pain fully registers.
I put a hand to my side and come away with blood. “Still charming.”
“Shut up.”
The open gate stays in her peripheral vision while she locates me behind the cradle. She has to turn away from it to reach my position. She chooses my position and runs back across the lane, favoring the bad foot so hard that the charge turns uneven.
“Hold that.”
“I was planning to.”
“Can you breathe?”
“Yes.”
“Deep?”
I try. It hurts, but my lung continues doing its job. “Yes.”
“Then it is probably a graze.”
“Your bedside manner is terrible.”
“You are not in a bed.”
She tears a strip from the bottom of her shirt and presses it against the cut. The pressure makes me swear.
“Keep complaining,” she says. “I can work with alive.”
The open gate is still there. She never looks at it again.
Moreno reaches us next and takes over pressure on my side while Calder keeps the lane covered. I keep breathing because both brothers look ready to punish me personally if I stop.
“I am fine,” I tell him.
“Didn’t ask.”
“You looked concerned.”
“I am deciding whether to kill you for standing up.”
“Brotherly love.”
Valentina checks the yard. “Two down east. One roof wounded. Pickup shooter restrained. Van still has at least two.”
Calder joins us behind cover. “Sirens.”
Now that he says it, I hear them. Distant, approaching from the main road.
Valentina says, “We have two minutes before local police make everything more complicated.”
“We need the living attacker,” Calder says.
Moreno starts to rise when Calder says we need the living attacker. Valentina claims the job before he gets his feet under him.
“I have him,” Valentina says.
She moves toward the pickup before anyone can argue, with Moreno taking the nearest cover angle and Calder covering over his shoulder. I stay behind the cradle because the cut at my ribs has finally imposed a limit on my usefulness.
The restrained man is conscious, bleeding from the shoulder, and furious. Valentina crouches just outside kicking range.
“Who issued the purge?” she asks.
He spits near her boot. Moreno steps closer, and the man starts talking.
“Warehouse commander.”
“Name?” Calder asks.
“Mateo Rivas.”
The name means nothing to me. Valentina recognizes it immediately. “Rivas controlled west-side processing for Joaquín.”
Calder asks the man, “Vehicles at the warehouse?”
“Do not know.”
“Entrances?”
“Loading bays. South employee door.”
Moreno says, “How many armed?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether they moved people.”
I push myself upright against the cradle. “Are there captives there now?”
The man looks at me, then at Valentina. “Couriers.”
“Willing?” I ask.
He laughs once, then regrets it when Moreno steps closer. “Some.”
Valentina says, “Then they’re coerced.”
Calder asks, “Will they be moved?”
“When word gets back.”
“What word?”
“That she came for the cache.”
The captive turns his head toward Valentina after admitting word has gone out. His attention makes the accusation personal before he says it.
“Everyone thinks you are claiming Vega’s assets because you are his remaining heir.”
Valentina’s face goes still when he calls her Joaquín’s heir. Her answer comes without hesitation.
“I am not.”
“He is dead. Cristian is dead. You are blood.”
“I am not his heir.”
“You can say that.”
The sirens have moved closer while we question him. Calder cuts to the only timing that can still help us.
Calder asks, “How long before the warehouse burns?”
The man’s mouth twitches. “Maybe it already is.”
Valentina stands. “He does not know.”
“How can you tell?” Moreno asks.
“Because if he knew the schedule, he would have used it to bargain before giving us Rivas.”
The man looks away. Police are close enough that dragging a cuffed wounded man with us would be stupid, so we leave him for the sirens. Calder pockets the attacker’s phone while Moreno strips the nearby weapon of ammunition, and Valentina secures the notebooks for departure.
Our vehicles are compromised by the gate team, so we take the white panel van they brought to trap us. The driver abandoned it during the fight. Valentina takes the wheel before anyone else reaches it, and I get the privilege of the middle row with a stolen boat towel pressed to my side.
Calder takes the passenger seat and uses the attacker’s phone to photograph call logs before shutting it down. Moreno sits beside me, one hand braced against the seat every time the van corners because he does not trust me not to fall over.
I tell him, “If you start holding my hand, I am telling everyone.”
“You are bleeding on my pants.”
“You own more.”
Valentina looks at us in the mirror. “Can both of you stop being twelve?”
“We were much worse at twelve,” I say.
Calder turns toward the windshield. “Warehouse is a trap.”
“They built the warehouse as a processing site,” Valentina says. “Now they know I’m moving through old assets, so they’ll convert the place around whatever they think I’m coming for.”
“What changes?” I ask.
“A trap has an objective. If they think I am claiming control, they will want me alive long enough to learn what I know.”
Moreno says, “Then you stay between us.”
She does not even look at him. “No.”
“Valentina.”
“No. I worked in that building and helped write the procedures for moving couriers and destroying files. Put my knowledge at the center of the plan.”
Calder says, “Agreed.”
Moreno turns toward Calder when he hears him agree. Calder keeps speaking before the objection can become another fight.
Calder continues, “We build around her knowledge.”
Valentina drives faster. The city recedes behind us. Produce warehouses and distribution yards begin replacing marinas and low commercial strips. My side hurts enough that laughter is becoming expensive, so I stop wasting it.
Valentina says, “There will be chemicals in the office for document destruction. Sprinkler valve is exterior west. Loading bay can be sealed from inside. South corridor holds labor when they are processing identities.”
Calder asks, “Cameras?”
“Reset on a local cycle every twelve minutes unless someone upgraded the system.”
Moreno asks, “Roof access?”
“Interior ladder behind the cooler bank.”
I ask, “People moved first or records burned first?”
“People if they have transport. Records if they do not.”
Our separate questions all pull useful pieces from Valentina because each comes from a different operational need. Calder takes the next turn by returning to what happened at the marina.
Calder looks at her. “At the marina you trusted us for six minutes.”
She scoffs. “That number is invented.”
“Approximately.”
“It was closer to four.”
Moreno says, “We need twelve at the warehouse.”
At the interchange, Valentina passes the highway ramp that would carry her away from Las Vegas and takes the warehouse route. All three of us remain in the van.