Chapter 84 – The Price of the Pier
The city was quieter in the small hours, the streets damp with a recent rain, neon bleeding in puddles. Kairo's driver threaded the black sedan through the back roads, avoiding main arteries where cameras and police patrols prowled.
Elira sat beside him in the back seat, the stolen ledger open on her knees. Her gloved finger traced the handwritten columns — shipment codes, dates, ports. The ink was precise, the kind a clerk would write when he knew a mistake meant losing a hand.
"This isn't just shards," she said. "Weapons, cash, narcotics. Vale's moving everything through the same channels."
Kairo leaned closer, his hand resting on the seatback behind her shoulder. "Which means if we hit Pier 17, we're not just taking his shipment. We're cutting the artery."
Her eyes flicked to his. "That artery bleeds in both directions. You'll make enemies we haven't even named yet."
His voice was steady. "If they're in bed with Vale, they're already enemies."
The sedan turned down a narrow alley and stopped in front of a nondescript brick building. No signage, no lights — just a steel door with a brass peephole. Kairo stepped out first, the damp air curling his breath in the cold.
Inside was the backroom of a closed billiards hall. A single table was lit, the green felt covered in open account books and scattered poker chips. Three men looked up as Kairo entered.
The one in the middle — Luca Moretti, the dockside liaison — was all smiles, though it never reached his eyes. "Lord Kairo. Didn't expect you tonight."
"You're on Pier 17's payroll," Kairo said without preamble. "Tomorrow, midnight, you'll clear it for me."
Moretti's smile thinned. "That pier's under special arrangement. High-paying clients. I can't just—"
Kairo stepped closer, the air between them tightening. "You can. And you will."
Moretti glanced at Elira, who stood at the door, her pistol in hand like she'd been born holding it. He shifted uneasily. "And what's in it for me?"
Kairo's reply was cold enough to bite. "Breathing."
The room went still. The two men flanking Moretti reached for their jackets, but Elira moved a fraction, and both froze.
Moretti cleared his throat. "Alright. But you'll need more than an empty pier. Vale's people will still be there."
"That's my problem," Kairo said.
He turned to leave, but Moretti called after him. "You're making a move that won't be forgotten."
Kairo paused at the door. "Good. I want them to remember who took it from them."
Back in the car, Elira closed the ledger and rested it on her lap. "If Moretti tips them off—"
"He won't," Kairo said. "Fear's a better guarantee than loyalty."
She watched him for a long moment, the sodium lamps of the passing streets casting sharp shadows across his face. "You're pushing harder than before."
He didn't look at her. "The longer Vale breathes, the closer he gets to owning this city. And I won't live in a world where I have to ask him permission to breathe."
Her voice was quiet but edged. "Then tomorrow night, we cut his lungs out."
The safehouse smelled faintly of oil and steel. Downstairs, the long wooden table had been stripped of its tablecloth and covered with weapons in various states of readiness — handguns lined in precise rows, shotguns with their actions open, crates of ammunition stacked against the wall.
Elira was already moving between them, stripping down a Beretta with methodical precision. "You're bringing the crew from the Hollow?" she asked without looking up.
Kairo removed his coat and draped it over a chair. "Two from Hollow. The rest from the old contacts in Genoa. People Vale doesn't have eyes on."
"That's risky," she said, snapping the slide back into place. "They don't know your way of running things. They might improvise."
"They won't have to think. They just have to follow orders."
From the corner, Matteo — one of Kairo's longest-serving lieutenants — stepped forward, flipping open a case to reveal flashbang grenades. "Pier 17's got two watchtowers. Thermal optics. We'll need smoke cover after the first wave."
Kairo nodded. "You and Ricci take the south approach. Elira and I will move on the north gate."
Elira arched a brow. "You're coming with me?"
"I'm not sending you in there without me," he said simply. "Vale's people will expect a distraction. They won't expect me at the front."
For a moment, she just looked at him — and there it was again, that unspoken line between tactical necessity and something else neither of them was ready to name.
Later, upstairs in the narrow kitchen, she leaned against the counter while he poured two glasses of whiskey. Rain tapped against the window, steady and cold.
"You know," she said, "most bosses would let their soldiers handle the dirt. You're not most bosses, but still… if you're there and something goes wrong—"
"Then you get the drives out, and you don't look back."
"That's not what I—" she began, but stopped herself. She took the glass he handed her, their fingers brushing.
He met her eyes over the rim of his drink. "You're the only one I trust to carry it if I can't."
That single sentence hit heavier than the whiskey. She looked away first, focusing on the rain, on anything but the weight of his trust pressing against the guarded part of her chest.
By midnight, the plan was locked. Matteo's men were setting up two fake shipments on other piers to draw Vale's scouts away. Ricci had bribed a watchman on the east side to leave a loading bay unlocked.
In the quiet before dawn, Kairo stood alone in the warehouse, watching the rain slick the empty docks. He could feel the hum of the city even here — not supernatural, but the pulse of territory, of risk and promise wrapped in the steel bones of a mafia war.
Elira came to stand beside him, her coat collar turned up against the wind. "Tomorrow night changes everything," she said.
"That's the point," he replied.
For a while they didn't speak. The only sound was the rain on corrugated metal and the slow, deliberate sound of Kairo's lighter as he sparked a cigarette.
When he finally glanced at her, his expression was unreadable. "Get some rest. Tomorrow, we take something Vale can't get back."
And she knew — he wasn't just talking about the pier.