Chapter 4 - The Ambush at Harbor View
The snow in the Porcupine Mountains was three feet deep, blanketing the towering pines in suffocating white.
By 2:00 PM, daylight was already dying beneath a bruised, purple winter sky. The unpaved logging road had run out five miles back. I had abandoned the truck when the snowdrift became too deep, continuing on foot through the freezing gale, armed only with a tactical winter coat, a scoped hunting rifle, and a modified Kimber .45 tucked inside my waistband.
My lungs burned with every breath of sub-zero air. Sweat froze against my neck.
Then, through the dense wall of hemlocks, I saw the tire tracks.
Two black Chevy Suburbans were parked haphazardly at the end of a forgotten clearing, their engines clicking as they cooled in the snow. Footprints—heavy, combat-booted tracks—led up the steep, rocky ridge toward a cedar-and-stone cabin tucked against the cliffside overlooking the frozen expanse of Lake Superior.
A shot echoed through the trees.
The sharp *crack* of a small-caliber hunting rifle.
I surged forward, ignoring the burning agony in my thighs, plunging through waist-deep snow drifts.
Up on the porch of the cabin, wood splintered as automatic rifle fire tore through the heavy cedar logs.
"She’s out of ammo!" a man yelled in a harsh, guttural voice from behind a stone outcropping thirty yards from the cabin steps. "Moretti wants the girl alive, but the woman is fair game! Flush her out!"
Four men were spreading out in a tactical diamond, closing in on the cabin door. Two others guarded the perimeter near the Suburbans.
They never saw me coming.
I dropped to one knee behind an ancient white pine, brought the scoped rifle to my shoulder, and exhaled slowly.
The crack of my rifle took the rearmost gunman out instantly, dropping him face-first into the snow before his body could register the shock. Without pausing, I cycled the bolt, shifted my aim two feet to the left, and took down the second flanker.
"Sniper! We've got a shooter behind us!" one of the mercenaries screamed, diving behind a fallen birch trunk.
Automatic gunfire turned in my direction, 7.62 rounds shredding the pine bark above my head in a storm of splinters and pine needles.
I rolled to the right, sliding down a small embankment into a snow-filled ditch, discarding the long rifle and drawing the .45 from my chest holster. I moved through the snow like a ghost, closing the distance while their suppressive fire chewed up the empty ridge behind me.
When I breached the clearing near the porch, one of the men was kicking open the shattered front door of the cabin.
"Claire!" I roared.
The mercenary spun toward me, weapon raising, but I fired two rounds center-mass before his finger could squeeze the trigger. He collapsed backward onto the wooden steps, dark red pooling into the pristine snow.
The last two gunmen broke cover from the rocks, firing wildly at me. A searing line of fire ripped across my left shoulder, spinning me around as a bullet tore through leather and muscle.
The impact drove me to one knee, but the adrenaline surged, cold and absolute. I raised my weapon, firing through the smoke and snow. One fell. The second turned to run toward the Suburbans, but I caught him between the shoulder blades with my final round.
Silence crashed back over the mountain.
The only sound was the howling wind off Lake Superior and the ragged, agonizing rattle of my own breath.
Blood dripped from my left arm, steaming as it hit the snow.
I dragged myself up the porch steps, stepping over the fallen bodies, my vision swimming with grey edges of exhaustion. The front door hung by a single iron hinge.
"Claire?" I rasped, leaning against the doorframe, my gun lowered at my side. "Claire, it's Daniel. It's me. They're gone."
Inside, the cabin was dark, save for the flickering orange glow of a stone hearth. The air was warm, smelling of cedarwood and dried sage.
From the dark corner behind an overturned heavy oak table, a figure emerged.
She was holding an empty, vintage Winchester lever-action rifle, her knuckles white, her body trembling violently. She wore an oversized wool sweater that could barely conceal the massive, low curve of her pregnant stomach. Her face was pale, hollowed out by weeks of sleepless terror, but her blue eyes—those fierce, brilliant blue eyes—were wide with shock.
"Daniel?" she whispered, her voice cracking.
The rifle slipped from her numb fingers, clattering against the floorboards.
I tried to smile, tried to tell her that she was safe, that everything was going to be alright.
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Instead, my knees buckled beneath me, and Daniel Carter, the undisputed king of Chicago's underworld, collapsed into a pool of his own blood at his wife's feet.
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