Chapter 8 - The Pier of Blood
The storm masked the sound of our approach as we scaled the rusted iron ladder on the western flank of Warehouse 14.
Cold rain lashed against my face, blinding me as I pulled myself onto the corrugated metal roof.
Below us, inside the cavernous belly of the warehouse, muzzle flashes lit up the darkness in violent, staccato bursts.
I dropped down onto the narrow catwalk, peering through the iron grating into the gloom below.
The floor of the warehouse was littered with spent shell casings, shattered wooden crates, and five motionless bodies in tactical gear.
In the center of the floor, pinned behind an overturned forklift, was Aiden.
His suit jacket was gone, his white dress shirt shredded and soaked in dark, glistening blood across his left shoulder and side.
He was on one knee, his breathing ragged and audible even over the drumming rain on the roof.
His gun was resting on his knee, the slide locked back—empty.
Thirty feet away, emerging from behind a wall of shipping containers, walked Marcus Chambers.
Beside Marcus stood two towering Russian mercenaries, their rifles trained directly on Aiden’s chest.
Marcus looked disheveled, frantic, and completely insane, his face smeared with grease and rain.
"Look at you, Aiden!" Marcus screamed, his voice echoing off the corrugated walls like a triumphant hyena.
"The great untouchable king of Seattle, bleeding out like a stray dog in the mud!"
Aiden lifted his head, his face bone-white, but his cold gray eyes still burned with defiant, unyielding hatred.
"You still... talk too much, Marcus," Aiden rasped, coughing up a spatter of crimson onto the concrete.
"Where is your precious little nurse now, nephew?" Marcus mocked, walking slowly toward the forklift, raising his silver revolver.
"She's probably already packing her bags with whatever jewelry she can steal from your penthouse."
"Leave her out of this," Aiden growled, trying to stand, but his legs gave out beneath him, his shoulder slamming hard against the metal chassis of the forklift.
"Oh, I won't just leave her out of this," Marcus sneered, stopping ten feet away, aiming the barrel directly between Aiden’s eyes.
"Once I put a bullet through your arrogant skull, I'm going to take the council's ratification."
"And then I'm going to find your sweet little wife and show her what a real Chambers man feels like."
A roar of pure, homicidal rage ripped from Aiden’s throat.
He lunged forward with his bare hands, completely disregarding the guns aimed at him, driven solely by the primal urge to tear Marcus apart.
The nearest Russian mercenary stepped forward and slammed the heavy butt of his rifle directly into Aiden’s injured shoulder.
A sickening crack echoed through the warehouse.
Aiden collapsed onto his back with a strangled gasp of pure agony, his body convulsing as the trauma overwhelmed his senses.
"Hold him down," Marcus ordered the mercenaries with a sadistic grin.
"I want him to feel every single second of this."
The two massive Russians stepped forward, planting their heavy combat boots onto Aiden’s wrists, pinning his arms flat against the cold, wet concrete.
The physical restraint instantly triggered the darkest horrors of Aiden’s past.
His back arched violently, his eyes rolling back in his head as he began to choke on his own terror.
"No!" Aiden screamed, a sound of absolute, soul-shattering anguish that tore straight through my heart.
"Get off me! Father, stop! Stop!"
Marcus threw his head back and laughed, thoroughly enjoying the psychological destruction of his nephew.
"Pathetic," Marcus spat.
"A grown man terrified of being touched."
I couldn't watch another second.
I looked at Viktor, who was positioned at the far end of the catwalk with a suppressed tactical rifle.
I held up three fingers, then two, then one.
Viktor fired.
Two suppressed rounds ripped through the gloom.
The Russian mercenary holding Aiden’s right arm dropped instantly, a clean hole through his temple.
The second mercenary turned in confusion, but before he could raise his weapon, Viktor’s third shot caught him directly in the throat.
Marcus shrieked in terror, dropping his revolver onto the concrete as the two bodies hit the floor.
Before Marcus could reach for the fallen weapon, I kicked open the fire escape door at the end of the catwalk, dropped down the iron stairs, and stepped onto the warehouse floor.
"Back away from my husband, Marcus," I said, my voice echoing through the silence of the warehouse like a death toll.
Marcus whipped around, staring at me in sheer disbelief.
"You?" he stammered, scrambling toward the fallen gun.
"I said back away!"
I didn't hesitate.
I raised the flare gun I had pulled from the emergency marine kit on the catwalk, leveled it at Marcus's chest, and pulled the heavy trigger.
With a deafening *whoosh*, a white-hot magnesium flare erupted from the barrel.
It struck Marcus directly in his left shoulder, bursting into a blinding shower of three-thousand-degree sparks and toxic white smoke.
Marcus shrieked in agony, the impact throwing him backward onto the wet concrete, rolling frantically to extinguish the burning chemicals that were searing through his flesh.
Viktor dropped from the iron ladder, instantly moving forward to plant his boot onto Marcus’s neck, pressing his sidearm between the traitor's eyes.
"Move an inch," Viktor growled, "and I'll paint this shipping container with your brains."
I didn't care about Marcus.
I dropped the smoking flare gun and sprinted across the blood-slick floor, falling to my knees beside Aiden.
He was thrashing violently on the concrete, his eyes wide and vacant, trapped in the darkest depths of the vault.
"Get off me... please... it's too dark..." he sobbed, his wounded shoulder bleeding heavily into the puddle beneath him.
"Aiden!" I cried, grabbing his uninjured right hand with both of my bare hands, squeezing with all the strength I possessed.
"Aiden, look at me! It's Tessa! I am here!"
The sound of my voice pierced the veil of his nightmare.
His thrashing stopped.
His gray eyes slowly focused on my face, blinking through rain, sweat, and tears of agony.
"Tessa?" he whispered, his chest barely rising.
"You're... you're real?"
"I am real, Aiden," I wept, pulling off my rain jacket and pressing it hard against the bleeding wound in his chest to stem the hemorrhaging.
"The Russians are dead."
"Marcus is finished."
"You saved Lily, and now I am going to save you."
He looked down at my bare hands gripping his, feeling the warmth of my skin holding him anchored to the living world.
A faint, bloody smile touched his lips.
"You... you came for me," he whispered, his consciousness beginning to fade.
May you like
"I am your wife, Aiden Chambers," I said, tears dripping onto his pale forehead.
"You don't get to die on me."
