Chapter 4 - THE MAN INSIDE THE WALLS
Roman pushed Gwen behind the engine block one second before the first shot came through the office wall.
Wood exploded above her head.
Thomas killed the workshop lights.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Gwen dropped to one knee.
Roman crouched beside the workbench.
His injured leg nearly folded.
She caught his arm.
“You okay?”
“Perfect.”
“Liar.”
Another shot struck the metal cabinet.
Thomas’s men moved outside, but Knox had chosen the building carefully.
Jack Miller’s workshop had been expanded in pieces over thirty years.
False walls.
Storage lofts.
Old crawlspaces.
A mechanic could disappear inside it.
Gwen knew every inch.
So had her father.
She leaned close to Roman.
“He’s in the old parts loft.”
“How do you know?”
“The floorboard.”
Roman stared.
“You identified a room from one creak?”
“I grew up here.”
Gwen crawled toward the boatlift control panel.
Roman caught her sleeve.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing something.”
“This is not the time.”
“It’s exactly the time.”
The old loft sat above the indoor boat cradle.
A steel service platform crossed beneath it.
Gwen knew which motor powered the cradle.
She also knew the gearbox had a brutal vibration when activated suddenly.
She reached the panel.
Roman understood before she touched it.
“Gwen.”
“Trust me.”
“I met you three days ago.”
“And yet here we are.”
She hit the control.
The boatlift motor thundered alive.
The entire steel framework shuddered.
A man cursed overhead.
Movement.
Roman raised his weapon toward the loft.
“Knox!”
Silence.
Then Adrian’s voice.
“You should have died in the inlet.”
Roman’s expression became stone.
“So it was you.”
“You were already dying.”
Gwen looked at Roman.
Adrian continued from above.
“Eight years of pretending the city still feared you while Vane ate your territory. Thomas kept cleaning up your mistakes. I got tired of waiting.”
Roman glanced toward Thomas.
Thomas looked furious.
“Come down,” Roman said.
“Why? So you can shoot me?”
“I want to hear how much Vane paid.”
Knox laughed.
“It wasn’t about money.”
Gwen crawled toward the stairs while he spoke.
Roman saw her.
He shook his head.
She ignored him.
Knox continued.
“Vane offered structure. Half your captains were ready to move once your plane went down.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“You sabotaged the fuel line.”
“And your mechanic discovered the replacement bracket wasn’t factory.”
“That’s why he died.”
“He panicked.”
Gwen reached the base of the loft stairs.
Knox could not see her from his position behind the storage wall.
Roman kept him talking.
“What did Gwen’s father have to do with this?”
A pause.
“The notebooks showed which old tunnels connect to Vane’s warehouses. Jack Miller recorded everything.”
“You burned her shop for maps?”
“I needed the routes before Vane did.”
Gwen stopped.
Something did not fit.
“If you work for Vane,” she shouted, “why steal routes before he finds them?”
Silence.
Roman looked toward her.
Knox had made a mistake.
Gwen continued.
“You weren’t working for Sullivan.”
A shot tore through the railing near her.
Roman fired once toward the muzzle flash.
Knox cursed.
Gwen ducked.
Thomas moved toward the stairs.
Roman shouted, “Hold!”
Then Roman understood too.
“Knox wanted both sides weakened.”
No answer.
“You brought down my plane. Let Vane seize the terminal. Expected his men to die. Then you take whatever survived.”
Knox laughed.
“Now you’re awake.”
He had manufactured the war.
Roman’s presumed death would fracture the Vescari organization.
Vane’s attack would destroy his own strongest soldiers.
Knox planned to inherit the city from both.
Gwen hated how ordinary the motive sounded.
Greed wearing strategy.
Knox moved across the loft.
Gwen heard the floorboard again.
She reached for the boatlift controls mounted beside the stairs.
The cradle shifted.
Steel screamed.
Knox lost balance above them.
His weapon struck the railing and dropped to the floor below.
Thomas surged up the stairs.
Seconds later, two of Roman’s men dragged Knox down.
Alive.
Bleeding lightly from the eyebrow.
Furious.
Roman approached him.
Knox smiled.
“You going to kill me in front of the mechanic?”
Gwen stood beside the workbench.
Roman looked at her.
Then back at Knox.
“No.”
Knox’s smile faded.
Roman handed his weapon to Thomas.
“Call the federal task force.”
Thomas stared.
Knox stared harder.
“You’re joking.”
Roman did not answer.
For years, Roman kept ledgers on rivals, bribes, murders, shipments, and city officials who profited from both organizations.
He had kept the records as insurance.
Now Knox’s betrayal gave him something else.
A reason to use them.
Thomas understood.
“You turn Knox over, he talks about us too.”
“Yes.”
“And Sullivan.”
“Yes.”
“And half the city.”
Roman looked exhausted.
“Yes.”
Gwen watched him.
“You’re burning your own empire.”
Roman’s gray eyes met hers.
“It started burning before you found me.”
Knox shouted that Roman had lost his mind.
Roman turned away.
Thomas secured him.
Then another gunshot exploded outside.
Roman jerked.
For a fraction of a second, Gwen thought the sound missed.
Then blood spread along his side.
“Roman!”
A second attacker fired from the marsh.
Thomas’s men returned fire.
Gwen caught Roman as his leg folded.
He was unbelievably heavy.
Again.
“Not this shit again.”
Roman managed a strained laugh.
“You complain every time you save me.”
“Stop making it a habit.”
She dragged him behind the workbench.
The bullet had passed through his side.
Blood.
Too much.
Gwen pressed both hands against the wound.
Roman’s face went pale.
Outside, engines roared.
The remaining attacker fled by boat.
Thomas radioed for medical support.
Roman’s eyes started closing.
Gwen slapped his cheek.
“Hey.”
He opened them.
“No.”
“Gwen—”
“No dramatic mafia dying on my floor.”
“I wasn’t planning—”
“Good.”
She pressed harder.
Roman hissed.
“Stay awake.”
His hand closed weakly around her wrist.
“You saved me twice.”
“Which means your bill is getting ridiculous.”
He almost smiled.
Then whispered, “Don’t let Thomas put me in a wheelchair.”
Gwen stared.
Thomas shouted from across the room, “I heard that!”
Roman laughed once.
Pain twisted his face.
Sirens approached.
Not police.
Roman’s medical team.
Gwen kept pressure on the wound until they took over.
When they lifted him onto the stretcher, Roman caught her hand.
“Come with me.”
It was not an order.
That mattered.
Gwen looked around her father’s damaged workshop.
Bullet holes.
Burned siding.
Blood on the floor.
Then at Roman.
“I’ll follow.”
“No SUVs?”
“I have my own truck.”
His eyes closed.
“Of course you do.”
They carried him out.
Thomas remained behind long enough to approach Gwen.
“Knox gave up the last shooter.”
“Vane?”
Thomas shook his head.
“One of our own captains.”
Gwen stared toward the road.
“How many?”
“We don’t know.”
She thought of Roman’s thirty armed men.
The lowered heads.
The fear.
The empire.
“How does Roman know who to trust?”
Thomas looked toward the ambulance.
“He doesn’t.”
Then his phone vibrated.
He read the message.
His expression hardened.
“What now?”
“Sullivan Vane just requested a meeting.”
“Why?”
Thomas looked at her.
“Because Knox sent him proof Roman plans to turn over the ledgers.”
Gwen swore softly.
Roman had survived the ocean.
Now every criminal in the city knew he was preparing to burn the system that made him powerful.
Thomas slipped the phone away.
“Vane says if Roman gives one page to the government, he’ll start with your house.”
Gwen looked toward her workshop.
Then picked up the iron pry bar.
“No.”
Thomas frowned.
May you like
“No what?”
“No more threatening my damn house.”
