Page 161 of Fallen Rook

Even if it took an entire lifetime.

Until he realized I was the one.

Chapter Forty-Six

Enzo

The Camorra never did arrive at the port on Wednesday, at two in the morning, like Slava had hoped.

But you know what did? A cargo ship with a fuckload of drugs.

It docked exactly where Slava’s girlfriend had informed us it would.

The dock was dark, cold, and scarcely populated by longshoremen. Ship horns blared in the distance.

Twenty minutes after the vessel’s anchor, Bratva soldiers and dockworkers began unloading what looked like sacks of birdseed down the ramp and into containers.

I parked on a cliff overlooking the operation, my motorcycle still running, my full-face helmet intact.

Slava lumbered up the ship’s deck with heavy steps, prattling away on his phone. He was bundled in a puffy coat. It was possible he was wearing a bulletproof vest underneath. Luckily, I was going to make his death a lot more personal than a few bullets. Oh, no. I had big plans for the guy.

“Where’s the dock lift?” He slammed his phone into his pocket, the echo carrying his scream. He looked flushed and disoriented, even from a distance. “This is going to take all night!”

He glanced around, frantic and on edge, wondering where the fuck we were.

Achilles was home, probably balls-deep inside his wife. Luca was in the office of the Forbidden Fruit club catching up on two weeks’ worth of work, and I was getting ready to drain the last drop of Slava’s blood.

Slava stopped on a ramp connecting the ship and dock, pulled out his phone again, and called someone. He pressed the phone to his ear, exchanging words.

He looked scared, worried, and royally pissed off. I cut the engine off to try to hear his conversation. Snippets of it rang through the air.

“All right…davai, davai…get your ass going.” He waved a hand, condensation trailing from his mouth. He was rushing his soldiers. He let loose a chain of Russian curses, digging his fingers into his eye sockets.

He knew we weren’t coming.

Placing my elbows on my bike’s handles, I watched as, again and again, he peered around, wondering where everyone was.

Four Lenco BearCats pulled onto the tarmac with a screech, and SWAT teams rushed out.

Two unmarked FBI SUVs parked behind them, and the world came crashing down on Slava all at once.

I could see it all playing out across his face. First, the confusion—why was the FBI taking action when the Camorra wasn’t there? Why had they brought four SWAT teams along?

Then—realization as sacks of birdseed were slashed apart, and firmly wrapped drugs were handed from one gloved hand to the other.

They weren’t there for us.

They were there for him.

The Bratva soldiers who’d unloaded the ship dropped everything and went for their firearms, their gazes skittering to Slava in a panic. They had semiautomatic weapons and probably a shit ton of spare clips, but nothing as tactical and precise as what the SWAT teams had brought along.

Arrests of soldiers began, and that was when Slava made his final decision to flee. He was still being overlooked—intentionally, of course—by the FBI. He grabbed his duffel bag, hurled it over his shoulder, and started running. I revved up my engine and zipped down the dirt road on the cliff in his direction, keeping my eyes on him the entire time. I slowed down about thirty feet away from him, watching as he slipped into an old Toyota in a parking lot—probably one of the longshoremen’s vehicles—and fiddled with the cables to bring it to life. I waited. I wasn’t some newbie. We had to go somewhere secluded so I could finish him off.

I wasn’t letting him out of my sight, though.

Slava ignited the vehicle and floored it. Just as I’d hoped, he didn’t take a main road. That was too dangerous. The entire NYPD was probably patrolling every marked highway leading to the port. Instead, he veered into the moors bracketing the port, the Toyota bobbing and straining over the uneven ground, coughing loudly.

Oh, this was gonna be too easy.