Page 14

Night presses down on the docks like a weight, thick and low and damp. Fog curls along the pavement in slow, ghosting tendrils, catching the glint of harbor lights and warping them into halos that flicker in and out of shape.

The water beyond is black and near silent, the surface rippling only slightly under the pull of the tide. The hush is total—unnatural. Only the occasional clank of shifting chains or the distant, rasping cry of gulls cuts through the quiet.

My car rolls to a stop in that silence, tires whispering against slick concrete. The headlights carve twin tunnels through the mist. Inside, the air is warm and still. My driver doesn’t speak. He never does.

I open the door myself.

The cold hits instantly—sharp, wet, briny. My shoes strike the ground with crisp precision, echoing faintly through the empty lot. Leather, tailored. Clean.

The metallic scent reaches me before I take five steps.

Blood. Not old. Fresh.

I don’t flinch, but my jaw tightens as I round the rusted container near the warehouse loading dock.

Another one.

That thought lands cold and clean in my chest. This isn’t just another territorial flare-up. My men have been dying in pieces for weeks, but this… this is too precise. The body’s positioned deliberately. No panic, no mess. Just a message.

Calculated.

Dima’s already there, pacing the edge of the scene, jacket drawn tight over his broad frame. His face is pale, mouth set hard. Dima doesn’t rattle easily. If he’s shaken, something’s wrong.

Really wrong. He turns when he hears me.

“Andrei,” he says quietly. No preamble. No jokes. “It’s bad.”

I don’t respond. I already know.

The warehouse greets me with silence. Not the usual kind.

This isn’t the quiet of neglect, the settled hush of an empty building left to dust and time.

This is the silence that follows violence—unnatural and complete, a breath held too long.

It drips from the high ceilings, pools in the corners, weighs down every step I take.

Overhead, the industrial lights stutter and flicker. The buzz of electricity cuts in and out, casting long shadows that jitter with each surge. One of the fixtures sputters near the back, blinking with a final, wheezing glow before dying completely. The rest hang on in stuttering defiance.

The interior is mostly empty. Stacks of crates line one wall, untouched and orderly. The scene hasn’t been disturbed. No overturned pallets. No forced locks. No damage, no theft.

Which makes the body that much louder.

He’s slumped against the far wall, arms resting limply at his sides, head bowed like someone knelt him there on purpose. But I know better. There’s nothing reverent about this. One bullet to the skull. Close range. Clean.

There’s no blood spray across the wall—just the thick trail of it dripping down behind him like ink seeping through paper. No panic. No struggle. Not even a scuff mark on the floor around him. One shot. One kill.

Calculated.

I crouch beside him, eyeing the angle, the trajectory. The entry wound sits just above the left brow. Straight through. The precision is what bothers me. Whoever did this took their time. Lined it up. Watched him breathe before they pulled the trigger.

The kind of quiet only confidence allows.

This wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t business. It was a message.

We can get close.

Dima shifts behind me. I don’t need to look to know his stance—tight, rigid, as if his shoulders alone can hold back the weight of what we’ve walked into. I rise, slow and measured. Letting my body absorb the truth of what I’ve seen before I speak.

He’s already waiting for it.

“Nothing was taken,” he says. “Not even a crate cracked. Inventory’s untouched. No tampering. Nothing missing.”

“This wasn’t about the shipment.”

“No,” he agrees, tone grim. “This was to make a point.”

I finally turn to face him. He doesn’t flinch.

“Who?”

He hesitates. Not out of fear. Dima’s not afraid of me—not the way others are. But he knows what this answer means. What it demands.

“The Mexicans,” he says. “Looks like Ortega’s crew. Tag by the fence matches what we saw in Valencia. Same green line. Same smear.”

Ortega.

The name settles on my tongue.

I adjust the cuffs of my suit, brushing dust and blood from the fabric with a precision that borders on ritual. Every movement has weight. Deliberate, composed, practiced in the art of not unraveling. The charcoal wool is smooth beneath my fingers, reassuring in its texture. Order. Structure.

I exhale.

He was one of mine.

He didn’t run. He died fast. Quiet. There are worse ways to go.

My gaze lingers on the corpse a moment longer, not out of sentiment, but respect. The cost of loyalty is high. I make sure it’s paid.

“Make sure his family gets compensated,” I say.

Dima nods once. He doesn’t need specifics. He knows what I mean.

No press. No public mourning., but his widow will never want. His children will go to school in Europe. A small estate. Security. Legacy. I take care of my own.

Always.

There’s nothing else to say. No speeches. No orders. The damage has already been done. What matters now is how we respond.

I turn from the scene, leather shoes clicking against the concrete, the sound cutting through the silence like a clean break. Outside, the fog has thickened, swallowing the streetlamps and casting the world into a blur of light and shadow.

I leave the warehouse behind me, but the message stays.

In the car, silence reigns.

The engine hums beneath us, a steady, controlled growl that matches the tension sitting like a weight in my chest. The streets outside pass in a blur of fog-drenched light, headlights slicing through the haze, refracting off rain-slick pavement.

Inside, it’s quiet. No music. No conversation.

Just the soft sound of tires rolling over asphalt and the tap of my gloved fingers against the leather seat beside me.

Rhythmic. Slow. Intentional.

I don’t speak, and the driver knows better than to try. He takes the turns I don’t have to tell him to take. He reads the silence the way others read commands.

My thoughts drift—not to the warehouse, not to the blood, not even to the message pinned to concrete like a warning.

They drift to Monaco.

A different battlefield. A different kind of war.

It had been six years ago, but I remember it clearly—because men like Matías Ortega don’t forget humiliation. Not when it’s public. Not when it costs them face in front of other syndicates.

That night, the air had been electric. Monaco at midnight—suits, cigars, champagne, the stench of perfume and pride.

The race was underground, but not hidden.

Everyone who mattered was there. The Bratva.

The Italians. French arms dealers. Cartel lieutenants with too much money and not enough discipline.

Matías had arrived like he always did—loud, confident, radiating untouchable swagger. Gold watch, imported car, two women on his arms who looked like they’d been bought to match the paint job.

He raced because he wanted the attention. Because the only thing bigger than his mouth was the chip on his shoulder. He thought the track was his stage.

I didn’t plan to race. I was there to broker a weapons deal: but I changed my mind when I saw him preening in the paddock like a rooster in heat.

It wasn’t about winning. Not for me. It was about shutting him up.

So, we raced.

He pushed too hard on the final curve, showboating for the cameras, tires screeching like a declaration. I passed him just before he lost control. His car slammed into the barricade in a shower of sparks and smoke, spun twice, and came to rest against the rails, engine dead, pride in pieces.

I didn’t gloat. I didn’t speak. I accepted the handshake from the Italian banker and finalized the deal on time. I saw Matías across the track, face red, lip bloodied, trying to laugh it off. Trying to pretend it didn’t matter.

Men like him bleed reputation, and he bled that night in front of every rival he had.

He’s never let it go.

Since then, the retaliations have come in pieces.

Never directly. Never boldly. A shipment delayed here.

A customs bribe rerouted there. One of my men gutted in a Barcelona nightclub—his body dumped in front of the consulate like an afterthought.

Petty slights, calculated provocations, always just under the threshold of war.

There were always layers. Always deniability. The games men like Matías play when they want revenge but aren’t brave enough to ask for it outright. He wanted me off-balance. He wanted to chip away at my house brick by brick, until it sagged under its own weight.

Men like Ortega forget one thing.

I don’t break.

Until tonight, he’d stayed in the shadows. Kept his hands clean. Let his dogs do the dirty work. What happened at the docks wasn’t a whisper. It was a gunshot. A declaration.

Tonight, someone pulled the trigger in my city. In my space. On my man.

No theft. No ransom. No business move.

Just a message.

We can get close.

That means one thing: Matías is done pretending.

***

Back at the estate, the air shifts. The cold outside is gone, but it doesn’t matter. The weight of the night still clings to me like soot. I move through the stone halls in silence, ignoring the flicker of candlelight along the walls. A man doesn’t need light to see when his focus is sharp enough.

I step into my quarters and shut the door behind me with a low, final click.

The scent of smoke and blood is still in my clothes. Not fresh. Just faint enough to linger, to remind. The suit hangs heavy on my frame now, soaked with the weight of another body gone cold. It’s time to shed it. The ritual helps.