Chapter 5 - The Fall of Patrick Sloan
Patrick Sloan looked like a man who had realized too late that he was playing a game with pieces he didn't understand.
Standing on the slippery steel deck of The Pacific Dawn, the morning wind whipping his silver-streaked hair across his forehead, the West River kingpin stared down the barrel of my gun as I stepped off the gangplank onto the ship. Clara followed close behind, her tablet open, broadcasting the ship's encrypted satellite logs straight to the federal task force channels she had unlocked twenty minutes prior.
“Adrian Vale,” Sloan sneered, his voice carrying over the rhythmic slap of harbor waves against the hull. “I heard you went soft. I heard you spent your evenings playing high-society chess instead of running the streets.”
“You heard wrong, Patrick,” I replied, keeping my stance balanced and my weapon locked on his chest. “You tried to put a sniper on my roof, stole through my payroll, and brought fentanyl into my city. That’s not chess. That’s suicide.”
Sloan laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “You think killing me stops this? My men control the docks from here to Newark! The federal judges are on my payroll! You can’t—”
“He can’t,” Clara interrupted, stepping out from behind my shoulder, her voice cutting through the salty air with absolute, razor-sharp clarity. “But the United States Department of Justice can.”
She tapped her screen twice.
Across the harbor, the wail of a dozen Coast Guard cutters and federal tactical marine units suddenly split the dawn, their red and blue emergency strobes flashing violently against the grey fog as they surrounded The Pacific Dawn from all sides.
Sloan’s face lost every vestige of color. “What did you do?”
“I sent the federal prosecutor’s office every offshore routing number, bribe ledger, and encrypted text message associated with your syndicate,” Clara smiled sweetly, holding up her tablet like a trophy. “Including the digital signature of every federal judge you bought off. They’re already being arrested as we speak.”
Sloan roared in fury, raising his submachine gun to level it at Clara’s chest.
“No!”
I fired before his finger could even twitch on the trigger. The bullet caught him cleanly in the shoulder, spinning him around and sending his weapon clattering across the wet steel deck. Before he could hit the ground, my security detail swarmed the deck, pinning him face-down and slapping heavy steel cuffs around his wrists.
The sirens grew louder, echoing across the East River as federal agents began boarding the ship from the Coast Guard cutters.
The West River syndicate was dead. Mason was in a holding cell, Sloan was in cuffs, and the multi-million-dollar empire of fentanyl and blood was being dismantled piece by piece by federal authorities.
I exhaled a long, slow breath I felt like I’d been holding since the ballroom chandeliers of the Alden House Hotel twenty-four hours ago.
I turned around to look at Clara.
She was standing near the edge of the deck, the morning wind catching her braided hair, watching the federal agents secure the cargo holds with an expression of profound, unshakable satisfaction.
“Well,” I said, walking over and standing beside her, resting my hands on the steel railing. “That was an eventful Tuesday.”
She glanced up at me, a brilliant, tired smile breaking across her face. “You owe me a very large bonus, Adrian. And hazard pay. And probably a new pair of shoes, because these tactical boots do not match my emerald dress.”
“You can write your own check,” I murmured, sliding my arm around her waist and pulling her close against my side. “Starting tomorrow, you’re not just my forensic accountant, Clara.”
Her dark eyes sparkled with cautious amusement. “Oh? And what promotion am I getting?”
May you like
“Partner,” I said softly, looking down into her eyes as the harbor police sirens wailed in the background. “In business, in the empire, and everywhere else that matters.”
Clara laughed softly, resting her head against my shoulder as the sun finally broke through the Manhattan fog, casting a warm, golden light over the city we had just reclaimed together.
