Red Dots In The Dark

Marcus Vance arrived in a black SUV with the lights off.

Fog rolled over Pier 79 in sheets, cutting the dock into pieces. The abandoned warehouse sat with its ribs showing, one side broken open to the water, the other sealed by rusted steel doors. Aleandro stood inside the center bay with Vincent at his shoulder and Isabella in a chair under one hanging lamp.

Her wrists were tied behind her. Her red purse lay on the floor near the wall.

The side door groaned. Marcus came in first, coat collar up, two men behind him. He stopped when he saw the space.

“No guns,” Aleandro said.

Marcus smiled with one corner of his mouth. “You still think this is a business meeting.”

“It is.”

Marcus’s eyes cut to Isabella. “You brought her.”

“She came with the problem.”

Marcus stepped farther in. “You look tired, Moretti.”

Aleandro did not move. “You sound hopeful.”

One of Marcus’s men shifted. Vincent’s hand rose a fraction.

Marcus lifted a hand. “Easy. We said no guns.”

Aleandro gave a short nod toward the doors. “You violated that before you walked in.”

Marcus glanced around, then laughed once. “You’re bluffing.”

The warehouse answered with a metallic slam.

The rear doors dropped shut. Another crash hit from the side. The sound traveled through the beams and into the floor. Marcus’s men turned at once, hands going toward jackets that held nothing legal.

Then the red dots appeared.

One on Marcus’s throat.
Two on the chest of the man to his left.
Three more along the second man’s ribs and neck.

Across the catwalk, hidden behind the support rail, a shape shifted. Then another. Laser sights moved with patient hands.

Marcus froze.

Aleandro looked at him. “You brought a hostage and no exit.”

Marcus’s jaw worked. “You think this changes anything?”

“Yes.”

Marcus dragged Isabella up by the shoulder. She made a small sound, her feet scraping the concrete.

“This is your exit,” Marcus said. “You want her breathing, you let me walk.”

Aleandro’s face did not change. “Go ahead and shoot.”

The words landed flat and clean.

Marcus stared at him.

Aleandro tipped his chin toward the nearest guard in the shadows. “You’ll miss. Then you die here.”

Silence held for a beat. Water slapped the pilings outside. Somewhere above, a chain rattled in the wind.

Marcus pressed the gun harder under Isabella’s jaw. Her eyes stayed on Aleandro, wet and fixed.

“You’re going to pay for this,” Marcus said.

“Not tonight.”

Vincent moved two steps to the left, opening a lane. More laser points slid with him.

Marcus saw it then. The catwalk. The dark corners. The steel doors. The men he hadn’t noticed because they had never been meant to be seen.

His grip tightened.

Aleandro watched that hand. Watched the white knuckles, the breath that shortened, the first crack in the bluff.

“Drop it,” he said.

Marcus did not.

But for the first time, he looked boxed in.