15. Kaleb
Kaleb
Salt and brine fill my nostrils as I work my way through the Devil’s dockyard. The sun has just set, yet the place is infiltrated by the spray of the sea and heavy fog. A winter breeze runs straight through my leather cut.
Moving through the shadows, I watch the men working on the dock. They are Devils, to an extent. Hired by us to do the legal part of the job, and to turn a blind eye to the not so legal part of the job.
They don’t see me as they mill around the dockyard, standing in a circle with their arms crossed, fighting the chill with a cigarette in their mouths. Spotlights shine down on them. Even if I don’t find what I’m looking for, I’ll tell Ash to fire the lazy assholes.
The one with greasy hair barks a nasally laugh, dropping the cigarette butt onto the ground and stubbing it out with a grimy boot. He spits on the concrete, clearing his throat.
“Don’t be a pussy,” he smiles, yellowing teeth on full display under the harsh light. Fuck. Where did Ash find these fuckers? “We’re backing a winning horse here.”
My attention lasers in on him.
A few men chuckle and nod their heads, and my hand flexes. Someone is about to die. I just feel it.
The latest shipment is a big one. The dock moonlights as an import-export company. Everything from everywhere. You name it. Furniture and machinery in. Seafood and timber out.
To anyone looking in from the outside, it’s a legitimate business. Makes good enough profit. Makes Ash look like a respectable businessman. A company no one questions.
The paperwork is the source of the real money.
Every container that comes through this harbour comes in on our watch. Most of them carry legal cargo. Some don’t.
If it’s moving in, and out of Havenport Harbour, we know about it. And if someone wants to use our dock, such as the mass amount of marijuana that’s meant to be in the shipping container behind these fuckwits, they pay a tax for the privilege.
There’s enough weed to keep the city’s dealers stocked for months. We don’t touch the product; we simply bring it into the harbour and collect our dues.
Quite the business.
So, it’s understandable why Ash was so twitchy today when he told me to check on the shipment. His eyes were doing that thing that makes him look part animal, and his fists were constantly balled. Muttering about the last shipment not being quite right.
Hence why I’m standing in the freezing cold, watching these useless fuckers dragging their feet. Getting ready to deliver their sentences.
“I don’t know, man, I’m feeling mad sketchy right now,” a younger one murmurs, eyes flicking around the dark corners of the yard.
His shoulders tighten, and I can see his teeth grinding from here.
He’s scared.
The ringleader sneers at him. “If you’re happy living off a measly penny when we have the chance at real money, then go run with your tail tucked between your legs.”
The younger guy tucks his hands into his pockets. “It’s a bit late now, aint it?”
“That’s the spirit,” one of the other men says, clapping him on the back. “Now let’s move the rest and get the fuck out of here.”
Finally, the start to spread out, returning to their work. Ringleader still mulls around, lighting another cigarette. But before he can finish his first inhale, I have my hand around his neck and his body pressed against the shipping container.
“What the fuck?” he sputters, eyes going wide when they land on me.
I might not recognise him, but he surely recognises me. I can see it in his pale face and the pulse hammering in his throat as he gulps beneath my grip. Ash is the Devil of Havenport Harbour. Us, me and Kai. We are the nightmares.
My eyes bore into him, hand squeezing harder around his throat. It holds none of the satisfaction compared to the way Roxanne struggled against my hold and stared at me with her fiery defiance. This sputtering coward of a man could never hold her courage.
Her defiance is terrifying. It shouldn’t belong.
“Real money, hey?” I murmur. “Is Ash offering you a raise?”
He tries to speak, but no words come out of his crushed throat. Easing my grip, I raise a brow, urging him to continue.
“It wasn’t anything! I was cracking a damn joke!” His spittle flies in my face, and it takes monumental strength not to end his puny existence right now.
“A joke?” I murmur, cocking my head at him.
He goes to speak again, but I’m not really in the mood for another lie. Squeezing my hand, the words die on his tongue.
“Names,” is all I say.
Short, sharp breaths fly through his flared nostrils as his feeble mind searches for a pathetic lie I might buy. One that will grant him another few more days on this wretched earth.
Spoiler, there isn’t any.
If any of the other workers see us, they don’t make themselves known. His eyes dart over my shoulder, searching for help that will not come. An escape that doesn’t exist.
“Please...” he rasps. “I’ll tell you everything.”
It’s almost amusing, the way men beg at the end. Promising things, bargaining for things they no longer own.
Mercy. Time. Their lives.
I possess all three.
“Start talking,” I whisper, breath fogging around us.
His knees threaten to buckle.
“I... I don’t know their...”
My spare hand reaches into my pocket to pull out my butterfly knife. The click of the blade carries through the darkness.
“Wrong answer.”
Sinking it into his gut is... less than satisfying.
I’m mad at myself for stooping so low. Ever since I used my favourite blade on the Black Cat, I refused to wash her blood from it. Now, I’ll have to scrub the metal raw. And somehow get more of her life source to stain it.
Not because I want her.
Because she’s become a distraction, I haven’t been able to carve out. Maybe I can carve it out on her skin. Just one last time.
The man’s guttural scream brings me back to the present, reminding me that I’m not toying with soft, inked skin. It offends me.
“The Kavanagh brothers,” he sobs. “They want the dock. They want everything you ship. They want...” He wheezes, clutching at the bleeding wound as if he can stop the warm liquid from oozing out. “They want you ruined.”
The man doesn’t realise what is happening until it’s too late. I grip his skull and twist. His eyes widen at the last second before he falls to the ground in a heap.
Ruined.
Everything falls quiet again, and I prowl towards the most recent shipment. Three containers in particular.
Each one opens with a creak. Each one completely empty.
By the time I reach the third one, I already know that the contents will be missing. It’s confirmed when I step inside the space. Eyes adjusting to the absolute nothingness that awaits me. None of the legal stock. None of the illegal stock.
All of it…gone.
Taken by people who see us as weak.
“Fuck,” I whisper, running my hand through my hair.
Ruined...