The office door clicked shut behind Ethan like the lid on a coffin.
Harris had squeezed himself behind his cluttered metal desk, pretending to look busy with a stack of papers that were definitely blank. The two men in the plastic visitor chairs didn't bother pretending anything.
They watched Ethan the way people watched something they were thinking about buying.
Up close, the difference between dock rat and shark was obvious.
The big one on the left—broad shoulders, thick wrists, shaved head, nose flattened from too many breaks—sat with his knees apart, elbows on his thighs. Casual, but his gaze was sharp. The leaner one beside him wore a dark wool coat that didn't have a single raindrop on it. Hair slicked back, gold watch peeking from under the cuff. His eyes were a calm, cold brown that said he'd never once had to clock in to move crates.
"Close the door, Cole," Harris said.
Ethan did. The rain outside went muffled.
"Sit," the slick one said, nodding at the third chair.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
Ethan sat. The cheap chair creaked under his weight. He kept his shoulders loose, face flat, the way the academy had taught him once. Neutral. Non‑threatening. Don't escalate.
He shoved that thought down hard. That was another life.
"Ethan Cole," the slick one said, like tasting the name. "Been working the docks what, year and a half?"
"Two," Ethan said.
The big man snorted, like the number amused him.
Harris stubbed out his cigarette in an overfull ashtray and tried to look like he was in charge of something. "He's a hard worker," Harris offered. "Reliable. Takes extra shifts."
The slick one didn't look at him.
"Good to know," he said mildly. "I'm Dario." He tipped his chin to the side. "That's Kane."
Kane's nod was more of a grunt.
Ethan knew what the names meant. Everyone who lasted on the docks past a week did. Dario and Kane weren't just guys in nice coats. They were the ones who came down from the office none of the dock crew saw, representing the people whose name was on the containers.
Moretti Imports.
If you drew a straight line from those letters to where the money ended up, it didn't stop with Harris.
"Let's not waste anyone's night," Dario said, folding his hands loosely. "You're tired. We're tired. Storm's a bitch. Harris, show him."
Harris fumbled under his desk and dragged out a manila folder. He slid it across the chipped surface toward Ethan like it might explode.
Ethan opened it.
Printed manifests. Grainy black‑and‑white stills from security cameras. Handwritten numbers.
"Look familiar?" Dario asked.
The photos were of tonight's loadout. Ethan recognized the alley of containers, the crane, even his own hunched shoulders in one frame.
Harris tapped the manifest sheet with a bitten nail. "Container C‑19 was supposed to go from the dock to Warehouse Three," he said. "Recorded loaded at 20:14. Arrived at the warehouse… without all of its contents."
Kane leaned forward, thick fingers drumming on his knees. "Eighty kilos light," he said. His voice was rough as crushed gravel. "That's not a rounding error."
Ethan flipped to the next page. More numbers. A timestamp. A scribbled note: –80kg, discrepancy.
"And this," Dario said, reaching over to tap one of the darker photos, "is our favorite part."
The image showed the container doors open, shadows inside. Ethan stood in the foreground, half‑turned toward the camera, hand braced on the metal.
The next still showed the doors shut. Ethan walked away, pallet jack in hand.
"No one else goes near it before it leaves," Dario said. "No one on the warehouse end opens it until after it's checked in. Yet when they do, we're eighty short."
He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"Crazy coincidence, huh?"
Ethan looked at the photo. At himself, frozen in grayscale. At the Moretti Imports logo stamped on the steel.
He didn't take the pallet contents. He'd been too busy keeping some kid from getting his skull crushed.
But the camera didn't show that. Just him and a container that was worth more than his entire life.
"I moved it from the crane to the stack," Ethan said, voice steady. "Didn't crack it. Didn't have time. You can check the—"
"Warehouse footage?" Dario cut in smoothly. "We did. No one pops the seal before it's counted. The seal number matches."
"So either it disappeared by magic," Kane said, "or it disappeared before it left here."
He let the implication hang.
Ethan's jaw clenched. "Maybe your count's wrong."
Kane's chair scraped as he shifted, amusement gone. "My count is never wrong."
Dario's gaze stayed on Ethan's face. "We don't like to think our partners steal from us," he said. "Makes business messy. Harris assures us you're one of his 'best guys.'"
Harris managed a sickly smile.
"So here's our problem," Dario went on. "We are missing product. That product represents a significant investment."
He flipped another page around. This one was a neat column of numbers with a total circled at the bottom.
Ethan's stomach dropped.
The total was more than he'd make in ten years at this job.
"The hell is that?" Ethan asked.
Dario's eyebrows went up. "That, Mr. Cole, is the value of what's missing. Street price. Wholesale. However you want to slice it, it's a lot of money."
He leaned back, crossing an ankle over his knee.
"And Mr. Moretti doesn't like being stolen from."
There it was. No "Imports" now. Just Mr. Moretti.
Ethan tried to calculate how many shifts it would take. How many days, how many nights. The math made him a little sick.
"I didn't steal anything," he said.
Kane's lip curled. "Everyone who ever stole from us said that."
Ethan dragged his gaze to Harris. "Tell them I didn't crack that container. You were on the radio. The crane was fucked, remember? I barely had time to—"
Harris's eyes darted anywhere but Ethan's face. His jowls quivered.
"Look," Harris said, "the cameras show what they show. It's… it's your pallet, Cole. I can't argue with the numbers."
Ethan stared at him. The realization slid into place: Harris had already picked who was going to take the fall before Ethan walked in.
"Convenient," Ethan said flatly.
Kane pushed up out of his chair. The room suddenly felt two sizes smaller.
"Here's how this works," he rumbled, stepping closer. "We don't call the cops. We don't file reports. We don't waste time with courts. We come to the man holding the bag and we say: you owe us."
He jabbed a thick finger at the circled number.
"That's your debt."
Ethan laughed once, sharp and humorless. "You want me to pay that? On what, my motivational poster wages? I don't even see that much money on TV."
Dario's smile returned, faintly. "We're not unreasonable," he said. "We don't expect cash up front. Mr. Moretti believes in… opportunity. You work. You pay it off. You prove you're trustworthy, maybe you make a little on the side. Maybe this all becomes a funny story one day."
"And if I say no?" Ethan asked.
The question dropped like a brick.
Kane's eyes went flat. "You don't," he said simply.
Dario shrugged one shoulder. "You walk out that door, we assume you've chosen to be a problem. Problems get… solved."
He reached into his coat and pulled out another sheet of paper. This one wasn't a manifest.
It was a printout of Sam's hospital invoice. Ethan recognized the header instantly, even upside down.
The room went cold.
"The city hospital is very helpful if you know who to call," Dario said lightly, sliding the paper across. "Privacy's a myth, Mr. Cole. Especially when people owe money."
He tapped the total with his knuckle. Still a big number, but tiny compared to the one on the manifest.
"You've got a sister, right?" Dario went on. "Samantha. Long‑term patient. They've been so kind, carrying the balance."
Ethan's chest tightened. "Leave her out of this."