Chapter 29 - The Traitor's Mask
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The hallway was a smoke-filled nightmare. Muzzle flashes lit up the dark corridors of the warehouse like strobe lights.
Dad was crouched behind a steel support pillar, exchanging heavy fire with four cartel mercenaries dressed in tactical gear. Blood was dripping from a graze wound on Dad's shoulder, staining his flannel shirt dark red.
"You should have stayed in the office, girl!" a voice shouted from the shadows at the far end of the hall.
Capo Lorenzo stepped into the light, holding a silenced pistol. He wasn't firing at the cartel hitmen. He was walking alongside them.
He was the one who had opened the security gates at Pier 9.
"Lorenzo..." Dad gasped, staring at his oldest friend in total disbelief. "Thirty years... I trusted you with my life!"
"You got weak, Abraham!" Lorenzo spat, aiming his pistol at my father's chest. "You spent twenty years pretending to be a truck driver while the rest of us did the dirty work! And then you hand the entire empire to a girl who needs metal rods to walk? Kane offered me fifty percent of the docks. It was time for a change in management!"
Lorenzo raised his gun to pull the trigger.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
A deafening volley of submachine gun fire chewed through the drywall behind Lorenzo. Three heavy 9mm rounds struck Lorenzo squarely in the chest and throat.
Lorenzo’s eyes went wide with shock. He dropped his pistol, clutched his bloody chest, and collapsed backward onto the concrete floor, dead before he hit the ground.
I stood at the end of the hallway, smoke curling from the barrel of the submachine gun tucked tightly against my shoulder. My leg braces were locked, holding me steady despite the brutal recoil.
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The remaining three cartel mercenaries turned toward me in shock, amazed that a woman in leg braces had just executed their insider.
"Cooper!" I barked. "Attack!"
