Page 62 of Love Me (Touch of Death 3)
They all know what to do. They fan out, moving around the dock to flank the boat as best they can. This needs to be quick and quiet without drawing any attention. More importantly, they all need to die before anyone can raise the alarm and contact Cole. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t be here. Bianchi can’t know I’m alive, or it will endanger Adelina; however, this requires stealth that no mafia soldier could possibly train for.
I tug the balaclava over my face and step out into the night. Every inch of my body is covered in black, and the shadows make me all but invisible. I flank the dock until I’m well away from the light, then I walk to the edge and lower myself off it. Icy water engulfs me, though the wet suit beneath my clothes stops me from feeling the full force and freezing to death. It’s a short, silent swim to the boat. When I reach it, I tread water and pull the gun from between my shoulder blades before pointing it at the railing above. When I pull the trigger, a grappling line springs free, meeting the rail with a clink of metal on metal.
When I press the trigger again, I’m towed out of the water and up onto the railing. I linger there, hunched against the edge of the deck, listening. Loud voices come from the other side of the boat where they’re unloading onto the dock. A cool breeze whips off the ocean, making me shiver violently. My job is simple, and this entire plan hinges on it: check that this is indeed a shipment worth stealing before we needlessly kill Ronan’s men.
A man climbs out of a hole in the deck, a rifle strapped to his back. It’s always a good sign. Armed men don’t tend to guard anything legal or worthless. As soon as he’s out of sight, I descend the steps into the belly of the ship. A single man is ticking off a clipboard, his back to me.
“That one next,” he says, pointing at a box.
I stride over to him and wrap my arm around his throat, squeezing hard. His clipboard clatters to the floor, and his legs kick helplessly as I cut off his air. Eventually, his struggles lessen, and he finally falls unconscious.
I drop him to the floor and pick up his clipboard. It has no details of the actual contents of the boxes, only how many there are. Sixty in total. I glance at the stacked metal crates; each one padlocked shut. I hurry, retrieving the tiny lock picking kit that I always keep in my pocket. My gaze nervously darts to the steps, waiting for someone to come back. The padlock springs open, and I wrench the lid back. Inside are…candles. I push some aside, scrambling against them as they all roll into whatever gap I create. About four rows down, my fingers hit the bottom of the box… barely a third of the depth of the entire thing. I throw the box over, sending candles scattering everywhere. With my hunting knife, I pry the interior layer away. Bingo. Inside the box are wooden racks, each stashing a Chukavin Russian semi-automatic rifle.
Sixty boxes. That’s a lot of guns.
I take the radio from my waistband. “Go, go, go,” I say quietly. There’s no sudden flurry of gunfire. It isn’t that kind of mission.
Footsteps hit the top step of the cargo hold, ringing out loudly over the rusted metal. I palm the knife at my thigh and let it fly the moment the figure comes into sight. The blade buries in his skull, and his eyes go wide, the life leaving them in a rush. The body tumbles down the steps, and I stop only to yank my blade out of his head before I’m moving again, knife in one hand, gun in the other.
I take down three more men silently, a slit throat, broken neck, knife in the spinal cord. I round the corner of the helm, knife poised between my fingers, ready to fly.
“Hey, it’s me.” Gio tugs down his balaclava and glances around at the bodies decorating the deck of the boat and dock beyond.
I watch as his men scout the bodies, finishing any that aren’t quite dead yet.
A few minutes later and a van pulls up on the dock. Jackson gets out and slides the back door open. Six men climb out, all dark-haired and olive-skinned, clearly Italian. I jump down off the boat and walk over to him. There’s a trace of pity in his eyes, though I know he won’t allow it to affect his work.
“Nero will pay their families well,” he says, as though he thinks I need some kind of moral justification.
“It’s just business, Jackson.”
He nods stiffly. “You lot, pick up the bodies, put them in the van,” he instructs. The men start moving Russian bodies, placing them in the back of the vehicle.
