Chapter 11 - The River Safehouse
The taillights of the bodyguard’s sedan cut sharp, red arcs through the wet asphalt as we wound through the industrial grid toward the river. I kept my hands locked at ten and two on the steering wheel of my compact car, the engine whining slightly as I followed him down a gravel access road framed by rusting shipping containers and looming brick warehouses. My heart hammered against my ribs, a dull, rhythmic thud that had not let up since the alley behind the diner. The threat from the lieutenant wasn't a shadow anymore; it had a shape, a name, and a knife pressed against the margin of our lives.
The bodyguard cut his headlights before pulling up hard against the loading bay of a four-story brick loft that sat directly over the dark, swollen current of the river. I parked a few yards back, killed my engine, and sat in the sudden stillness. The air smelled of damp concrete, diesel exhaust, and cold river water.
A heavy steel side door swung open, and the bodyguard stepped out, gesturing once for me to follow. I grabbed my canvas jacket from the passenger seat, pulled it tight around my shoulders, and stepped out onto the gritty pavement. Inside the loft, the space was vast, raw, and cavernous, lit only by a cluster of green-shaded utility lamps hanging over a heavy oak workbench. Exposed brick walls absorbed the sound of our footsteps, and a set of iron stairs wound upward into the shadows of the rafters.
Standing by a tall, multipaned window overlooking the black expanse of the water was my brother.
He didn't turn around immediately as the heavy steel door slammed shut behind us with a pneumatic hiss. He wore his black suit jacket draped over the back of a metal stool, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the dark ink of the tattoos wrapping around his wrists. When he finally pivoted to face me, his dark hair was slightly mussed from the wind, and the sharp lines of his face were drawn tight.
"You shouldn't have been in that alley," he said, his voice low and flat, carrying across the hollow room.
"I wasn't looking for trouble," I answered, keeping my voice steady despite the tremor in my knees. I walked toward the workbench, stopping a few feet away. "Your lieutenant found me. Or he thinks I'm a vulnerability. Either way, he made it clear I'm part of this now whether I signed up for it or not."
My brother let out a sharp, humorless breath and scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "He forced my hand tonight. He thinks my focus is divided, that bringing you into the fold makes me weak. A reckoning is coming, and it's going to happen faster than I planned."
He walked over to the workbench, picked up an airline envelope resting next to a heavy ceramic ashtray, and slid it across the dark wood toward me.
"I booked a seat for you on a red-eye out of the municipal airfield," he said, his gaze fixing on mine with an intense, unyielding gravity. "A car will take you straight to the tarmac. There's cash, a new phone, and an address two states over where nobody knows your face. You pack a bag tonight, and you vanish until I clear the board."
I looked down at the paper ticket sticking out of the blue cardboard sleeve. The departure time was less than three hours away. All my life, I had survived by keeping my head down, blending into the background of diners, apartment complexes, and restaurant shifts, never relying on anyone, never owing anything to a soul. Now, the brother I hadn't known existed until forty-eight hours ago was handing me an escape route, trying to lock me away in a safe distance while he waged a war in the streets we grew up in.
Slowly, I reached out, picked up the envelope, and held it between my fingers. I felt the crisp, manufactured weight of the paper. Then, without a word, I bent it cleanly in half and laid it back down on the workbench.
"No," I said quietly.
His eyes narrowed, the dark pupils contracting under the harsh glare of the utility lamp. "This isn't a negotiation. You don't know what these men are capable of when they're cornered."
"And you think I don't know what it means to be cornered?" I stepped closer, meeting his gaze without flinching. "I've spent my whole life looking over my shoulder, figuring out how to survive on my own terms. Running away to some quiet town isn't going to make me safe. It just means I'll spend every day waiting for someone else to knock on my door."
The bodyguard shifted slightly in the background near the entrance, his hand hovering near his hip, but my brother raised a single finger to halt him. The silence in the loft stretched thin, broken only by the distant, hollow groan of a barge moving down the river outside.
May you like
"I'm staying," I said, my voice dropping into a register that left no room for argument. "You have a leak inside your ranks, and hiding me won't plug it. If your lieutenant is coming for you, he's coming for both of us. Let's find out who's helping him."
###
