Chapter 7 - The Final Transaction
The side door of the SUV was ripped open with a groaning screech of metal. Dario stood there, the cold wind whipping his hair across his face, his eyes wild with a manic, desperate energy. He reached inside, his bloody fingers wrapping tightly around the collar of my sweater, dragging me out of the vehicle onto the cold, wet concrete.
"Julia!" Petra cried out from inside, but she was pinned by the distorted dashboard.
I fought back, kicking and scratching at his face, but Dario was fueled by pure, unadulterated hatred. He threw me against the hood of a nearby car, his heavy body pinning me down, the cold steel of his gun pressing hard against my temple.
"You ruined everything!" he hissed, his breath hot and foul against my face. "My name! My territory! The northern docks! You walked away from me for that bastard Mancini! Look at you, acting like a queen when you're nothing but a debtor's whore!"
"I am nothing to you, Dario," I spat, staring up at him without a single tear, my voice filled with a profound, unshakeable disgust. "You never owned me. And you never will."
"I'll take what I'm owed right here," he snarled, his hand moving down to tear at the front of my shirt. "Let's see how much Mancini wants you when you're broken."
"Dario."
The voice didn't come from a distance. It came from right behind him, low, steady, and carrying the absolute weight of a death sentence.
Dario froze. Slowly, he turned his head.
Aleandro stood ten feet away. His suit was torn, blood dripping from a shallow cut on his cheek, his left arm hanging slightly loose at his side. But his right hand held his pistol, aimed directly at Dario’s heart. His eyes weren't angry anymore. They were dead. The eyes of a man who had already decided that the person in front of him had ceased to exist.
"Step away from her," Aleandro said softly.
Dario let out a hysterical laugh, pulling me up by my hair, using my body as a human shield, the gun still pressed against my head. "You won't shoot, Mancini! You love this little thing, don't you? You soft, sentimental fool! If you fire, I pull the trigger and her brains belong to the pavement!"
I looked at Aleandro. Through the pain and the terror, our eyes met. I saw the slight, almost invisible nod of his head. He was telling me to trust him. He was telling me he had the shot.
I didn't hesitate. I leaned my head back hard, slamming my skull directly into Dario’s nose.
A loud crack echoed as his nose shattered, a spray of blood hitting the back of my neck. Dario screamed, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second as he stumbled backward.
In that microsecond of space, Aleandro fired.
A single shot. No hesitation. No flair.
The bullet caught Dario directly between the eyes. His expression froze into a mask of pure shock before his knees gave out, his body collapsing backward over the edge of the pier, falling with a dull, heavy splash into the dark, freezing waters of Lake Michigan. The lake swallowed him whole, leaving nothing behind but a faint ripple of red on the surface.
Aleandro dropped his gun and ran forward, catching me just as my knees buckled. He pulled me into his arms, lifting me completely off the wet ground, crushing me against his chest as if he were trying to pull me inside his own skin.
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"I've got you," he breathed, his voice finally cracking with the emotion he had held back all night. "I've got you, Julia. It's over. It's finally over."
I buried my face into his neck, my tears finally flowing, warm and cleansing against his cold skin, as the sound of sirens began to wail in the distance, signaling the end of the old regime.
