Chapter 9 - The Rescue at Dock 42
Warehouse 42 smelled of salt water, diesel exhaust, and wet concrete.
Damian led his strike team through the loading bay doors. They moved like ghosts, eliminating three lookouts with suppressed fire before the alarm could sound.
Inside the central shipping container, Damian found Clara Bell.
She was bound to a metal chair, her lip split, her face bruised, but her dark eyes were burning with fierce defiance. She looked strikingly like Anthony Romano—the same high cheekbones, the same unyielding gaze that Damian had remembered from his own youth.
"Clara," Damian said, stepping into the light and lowering his weapon.
The young woman flinched, then looked at his face. Recognition flashed in her eyes. "You... you're Damian."
Damian pulled a knife from his belt and sliced through the zip-ties binding her wrists. "Mia is safe. She's at my estate, asleep."
Tears spilled over Clara's bruised cheeks as she collapsed into Damian’s arms. "She made it... thank God, she made it. They ambushed us on the turnpike. I threw her out near your perimeter fence... I told her to look for the garden..."
"She found me," Damian said softly, holding his half-sister steady. "The fight is over, Clara. Silvio is broken. His syndicate is done."
"It's not just Silvio," Clara whispered frantically, gripping his lapels. "You don't understand, Damian. Silvio wasn't working alone. He was taking orders from someone else."
Damian froze. "Who?"
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"A man who called himself the Architect," Clara said, trembling. "He had father's private journals. He knew every safehouse, every offshore account, every security code. Damian... whoever he is, he knew things only father could have known."
***
