The storm was still going strong. It howled and screamed, tearing through the city with a hunger that was almost vindictive. Each gust of wind pushed the rain harder against the rust-eaten railings that surrounded the road and the skeleton remnants of streetlamps, making the sheets of rain so sharp they might as well have been glass. It wasn't the forgiving sort of night. It was the sort of night that required an answer—blood or atonement, or both. As though the storm had crept into her bones and spoken its promise, Daniela could sense it deep within her marrow: nothing ends tonight without a price.
Hulking and abandoned, the warehouse squatted at the end of the dock, its windows gaping behind bars of corrugated metal like blind eyes. Cones of yellow were warped with each curtain of rain, and a few floodlights buzzed against the rain. Figures moved in their wake, men fully armed, and Kayleigh's warriors sank like ticks into the city's flesh. Every action was calculated, and every shadow posed a threat.
Daniela's muscles were as taut as coiled wire, and her jaw was locked. She had been on the brink of an ending much too often. However, the weight was different tonight. It was no longer only about adversaries.
"Last chance to turn back," Ramirez muttered, his voice low, more gravel than sound, barely audible over the storm. His hand rested on the butt of his sidearm, his other tightening around the radio at his shoulder. The rain made grooves of his face look deeper, carving him into something carved out of stone. He wasn't afraid, not exactly—but he had the look of a man who'd buried enough soldiers to know how the night might finish.
Daniela turned her head just enough to catch him in her peripheral, soaked hair plastered against her temple. Her eyes gleamed, not with recklessness, but with something colder, sharper. "You should know by now, Captain," she said, voice steady, iron beneath the velvet. "I don't turn back."
After the storm's fury and the staccato ping of rain on metal, there was a lingering silence. Then there was another voice.
Eleanor emerged from the shadows of their small group, her stolen trench coat leaking rivulets that collected at her boots and hanging heavy. Her eyes blazed with something more intense than the storm itself, despite the fact that she wasn't made for this world of gunfire and personal grudges. Her pale face was streaked with terror, which was evident, but it was subdued by resolve, the kind that only grows when someone has lost too much to turn back.
"She doesn't turn back," Eleanor said, her voice soft, but not fragile. Each syllable was laced with defiance, a vow wrapped in tenderness.
Ramirez let out a groan, not of weakness but of bone-deep exasperation. His hand slipped away from the radio, dragging instead down his wet face as though to wipe away the inevitability of what was coming. "You two deserve each other," he muttered, the closest thing to resignation he'd allow himself.
A thin smile pulled at Daniela's lips, weary but edged with something sly. She didn't break her stare at the warehouse, but she tilted her head toward Eleanor just enough that her words carried warmth, even undercut with steel.
A thin smile tugged Daniela's lips. "That's the first thing we agree on."
...
The breach hit like thunder.
The hinges of the steel doors screamed in protest as they buckled inward and finally tore free. Gunfire shattered the night with its ruthless staccato, and men yelled as though the storm itself had spilled inside. Short bursts of hellfire painted the warehouse walls as muzzle flashes strode over the vast space.
Daniela navigated the confusion with deadly accuracy. Every pull of the trigger was a punctuation mark to weeks of betrayal and rage, and her handgun boomed in her hand as each shot was put with surgical certainty. She didn't hesitate despite the bodies falling and the blood and rains slickening the floor. She lacked the privilege.
Eleanor had once more armed herself in spite of Ramirez's yelling protests. At first—but just at first—a revolver shook in her hand as she stood with her back to a pile of corroded shipping crates. She was stable as Kayleigh's guys started to approach her in waves. Too steady. She shot, one after another, until a horrifying calm streaked her face instead of panic.
And then Kayleigh appeared.
Even though it was burning, she walked into her court from the catwalk with the dignity of a king. The glimmer of the revolver at her side, the sharp, cruel curve of her smile, and the flow of rain plastering her hair to her cheekbones were all captured in the floodlight overhead.
"Dani," she purred, voice slicing through the storm and chaos like a blade dipped in honey. "My stray dog, come back for scraps."
Daniela pivoted instantly, weapon trained, stance unflinching despite the blood already dampening her sleeve. "Drop it," she barked, tone flint and fire.
Kayleigh laughed—a sound that carried no fear, only delight, like a predator who had been waiting for this hunt all her life. "You still think you're the one with power here?" Her eyes glittered as she stepped off the final rung of the ladder, landing in a puddle that splashed crimson with reflected light. "You're late. You always were."
The air fractured into violence.
There was a new round of ruthless gunfire. Ramirez's group charged forward, crashing into Kayleigh's group in a hail of gunfire, fists, and cries. With reverberating ricochets, shattered glass, and people striking the floor, the warehouse turned into a slaughterhouse. And Daniela and Kayleigh moved in the midst of everything, seemingly unaffected by the mayhem. Not toward safety or cover, but toward one another.
Two forces magnetized by years of unfinished business.
Kayleigh shot first, grazing Daniela's arm as her bullet whistled through the air. Daniela didn't falter despite the searing pain. She fired back, her own salvo of bullets bouncing off steel beams and breaking a hanging lamp that left half the floor in complete darkness. Guns were rendered ineffective in the crush of proximity as their duel drew them closer and closer.
Fists replaced bullets.
Kayleigh struck first, slamming Daniela into a concrete pillar with the strength of rage honed sharp by years of bitterness. Her sneer was inches from Daniela's face, breath hot against her cheek. "You're weak," she spat, her words a blade shoved into the wound she'd just torn open. "She makes you weak."
With blood heated at her temple and vision aglow with stars, Daniela's head jerked back from the impact. Her knees were on the verge of giving out for a split second. But a single word—clear, frantic, grounding—pierced through the confusion, the storm's fury, and the resounding gunfire.
"Daniela!"
Eleanor's voice.
That single word stitched Daniela back together, bone by bone, will by will. She felt it anchor her spine, flood her veins with fire.
Daniela turned viciously, snatching the air from her opponent's lungs with a crunch as she drove her elbow deep into Kayleigh's ribs. With a look of amazement on her face, Kayleigh stumbled. Daniela acted without hesitation. Kayleigh was thrown crashing onto the damp, oil-slick floor as she jerked free, turned, and swept her legs from beneath her.
As though it had been anticipating this moment for as long as she had, Daniela's hand found her revolver and her fingers curled around the well-known steel handle. With breath heaving, perspiration and blood blending with the unrelenting rain beating through the broken skylight overhead, she leveled it squarely at Kayleigh's chest.
And then silence.
As if every fighter knew the duel at its core, the battle that had engulfed the warehouse appeared to end abruptly. With their rifles placed against the backs of their necks, Ramirez's men had Kayleigh's crew immobilized. Daniela and Kayleigh were highlighted in a shaft of icy light as torrential rainwater seeped through the shredded roof. Now it was a stage, and all the survivors were its spectators.
Kayleigh chuckled, low at first, then louder, even as blood spilled from the corner of her lip. Her teeth were pink, but her voice was as sharp as ever. "Do it. Kill me. Prove me right."
Despite all she had told herself, Daniela's finger trembled as it tightened on the trigger. She desired it—my goodness, she desired it. to put an end to Kayleigh's influence on her life. to permanently silence her. Her breath caught, though. Like a precipice, the line she had vowed never to cross hung in front of her. And then there was Eleanor's eyes.
Eleanor was watching.
Kayleigh wasn't done, though. Her eyes blazed with hatred and guile, even as she lay sprawled in the blood-slick water. Almost imperceptibly, her hand twitched toward her boot. A second handgun, waiting, hidden. Eleanor's eyes widened as she spotted it before Daniela did.
"Dani—!" she screamed.
Time shattered.
Daniela didn't think. She didn't breathe. Reflex overtook her body, her finger pulling the trigger with deadly finality.
Like a bell announcing the fall of an empire, the shot rang out through the tunnel. Kayleigh's eyes widened as the harsh mask she had worn her entire life was broken by disbelief. As the blood stretched forth like a shadow claiming her, her body twitched once before folding and crumpling to the ground.
For the first time since Daniela had known her, Kayleigh was silent.
The storm outside howled louder, as if mourning—or perhaps applauding.
...
The rain was relentless as Daniela staggered outside, Eleanor at her side. Ramirez said nothing, just watched as his detective's shoulders finally slumped, as if the weight of years had been pried off them by a single bullet.
Eleanor touched Daniela's arm gently. "You did what you had to."
Daniela's voice was raw. "She was right about one thing. Love makes you weak."
Eleanor's jaw tightened, but her eyes softened. "Maybe. Or maybe it makes you strong enough to end the things you can't face alone."
Daniela met her gaze. For the first time, she let the walls drop, just a fraction. The city still howled, blood still stained her hands, but Eleanor's eyes were steady, unflinching.
"Your trouble," Daniela rasped, the old line suddenly fragile.
Eleanor smiled faintly. "Takes one to know one."
Daniela laughed, short, sharp, but real. Then Eleanor's hand slipped into hers, warm despite the rain. It wasn't a victory march, wasn't a promise of happy endings. But it was enough.
Kayleigh was gone.
And Daniela, for the first time in years, felt like she might actually survive herself.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued