Page 112 of Precious Hazard

Chapter 24

“Have you heard back from our source at the precinct?” I ask as I check my guns.

“Yup.” Nino nods as he makes a right turn. “No John Does matching Riggo’s description have turned up in the past seventy-two hours. So, there’s a chance the boy is still alive.”

My jaw muscles clench. That chance is slim at best. But whether Riggo is alive or not, Katrakis is a dead man. He signed his own death warrant the instant he laid a hand on a Cosa Nostra member. Now, I don’t even need to worry about pissing off Ajello by going after the Greekstronzo.Breaking his spine will be entirely justified.

We round another corner and turn into the parking lot of a local shipping and distribution company. There’s a hive of activity, with plenty of delivery trucks constantly on the move. That should prove handy for masking our approach. And we can get close to Katrakis’s building, which backs up to the shipping company’s warehouse. Thank fuck for Nino’s maniacal attention when it comes to security protocols. If he didn’t have that secondary tracker installed on Riggo’s car, it would have taken us much longer to narrow down this location.

“I still think we should wait for nightfall.” Nino pulls the car to a stop. “Going in guns blazing at this hour is too risky. Too many eyes around, and we don’t know how many guys Katrakis has inside.”

“We’ve already lost too much time gathering our men. And it’ll be dark soon enough. Besides, all these trucks give us plenty of cover, and the traffic noise from the Belt and the airport should drown out any gunshots.”

Six more vehicles have been tucked in among the parked semis by the time I step out of the car. The sound of multiple car doors being shut gets drowned out by the cacophonous activity in the distance. I scrutinize the determined faces of nearly two dozen of our heavily armed men. If the full force of the Greek Syndicate is inside the storage complex, we’ll be seriously outgunned. But that doesn’t matter. We’ve been doing this for a long time.

“Remember, Katrakis is mine.”

The men nod in understanding. Prior to coming over here, we went over every detail of our plan of attack. Everybody knows their role and position.

I take out both of my guns and head across the properties’ divide.

***

Something doesn’t add up.

I crouch next to the body lying face down on the concrete floor and flip him over. My bullet caught the bastard just above his left eye.

“Look familiar?” Nino asks next to me.

“Nope.” I brace my elbows on my knees, looking up and down the long, narrow corridor flanked by endless metal doors to self-storage lockers. “I don’t like this.”

“Yeah. I expected greater resistance.”

The front office, which we hit first, certainly showed evidence that a lot more men had recently been here. There was a pile of still-greasy pizza boxes and empty cans of beer littered around the room. Ashtrays overflowed with half-finished cigarettes, and smoke still hung in the air. All indications of a small army on the premises.

However, aside from the two security guards Pietro’s team took care of at the front entrance and the one at the rear door that Nino dropped, we encountered fewer than a handful of guys along the corridors. Counting my dead buddy here, the total is actually six. I checked out each one of them, and none were old Katrakis. His inept bodyguard from the night they paid a visit to the construction site isn’t among the dead, either.

“Any sign of Riggo?” I ask.

“His car was found behind one of the freestanding units, but there’s no sign of him. Pietro took half our guys to the far end of the building. They’re doing a sweep of every storage locker.”

I glance down the long hallway to where our men are forcing open the metal doors. Some are using bolt cutters or drills they must have found in the office to break the locks, while others have opted to simply shoot out the things.

“You take the left side.” I straighten and aim at the lock on the nearest unit on my right, sending the bullet flying.

Antique furniture. Boxes of crap covered in mold. Awful-smelling racks of ratty clothes. Every unit I open, I hold my breath, dreading and hoping to find Riggo. More often than not, the boy has been a pain in the ass, but I’ve got kind of a soft spot for him. His being here raises many questions. Some potential answers I refuse to entertain. My guess is Riggo was tailing Katrakis and got made. He was brought here to face the old man.But why risk holding a captive Cosa Nostra member? Why risk retribution for a fairly insignificant kid? Tobias Katrakis must be losing his touch.

“Nino?” I shout as I pull up yet another overhead door.

“Still nothing.” His voice carries over the sound of the scraping metal. “I sent Pietro to check the outer buildings. Maybe they dumped—Jesus fuck!”

I spin around, catching Nino ducking under the half-opened door into a locker at the far end of the hallway.

“In here!”

When I reach the unit, the putrid stench of piss and blood hits me right in the face. The overhead bulb in the cramped space is out, but there’s enough light spilling in from the corridor to illuminate the curled-up body on the dirty floor.

“They roughed him up pretty good,” Nino barks into the phone pressed to his ear. His other hand is feeling the side of Riggo’s neck. “Pulse is weak, but it’s there. The kid is unconscious. We need to get him to the clinic, stat.”

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