Chapter 5 - The Snake in the Family
The rain turned into sleet as Elena sprinted through the shadows of the industrial corridor.
She wore a dirty maintenance jacket she had scavenged from the substation, the hood pulled low over her bruised face. In her pocket, Vincent's wolf-head ring pressed against her hip like a brand. Every siren in the distance sounded like an executioner’s drum.
She reached Cermak Road. The veterinary distribution warehouse was a low-slung, cinderblock building surrounded by a ten-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Elena didn't climb the fence; she found a section near the drainage ditch where soil erosion had left a two-foot gap beneath the steel mesh. She dropped to her stomach, sliding through freezing mud and stagnant water, ignoring the icy slurry soaking through her clothes.
Using a rusted iron pipe she found by the dumpster, Elena jimmied the latch on a ground-floor delivery window. The wood gave way with a sharp *pop*. She tumbled inside, landing softly on bags of animal feed.
The warehouse was vast and smelled of cedar shavings and dry grain. Using the dim flashlight app on her cracked phone, Elena navigated the aisles until she located the climate-controlled pharmaceutical refrigeration unit.
Her heart leaped. Behind the glass door sat rows of veterinary medications.
"Atropine sulfate," she muttered, scanning the labels frantically. "Come on... come on..."
There it was. Multidose vials of concentrated atropine, used to treat organophosphate poisoning in livestock. She grabbed three vials, along with a package of sterile syringes, saline flush, and medical gauze.
As she stuffed the supplies into her jacket pockets, the beam of a high-powered flashlight cut through the warehouse darkness.
"Freeze! Don't move a muscle!"
Elena froze, her hands inside the refrigerator.
Slowly, she turned around. A private security guard stood at the end of the aisle, his service pistol drawn, his flashlight blinding her. But he wasn't wearing a standard security uniform. Under his open windbreaker, Elena caught the flash of a tailored silk shirt and a gold chain.
He wasn't private security. He was one of Marco Vance’s men.
"Well, well," the man sneered, lowering the flashlight slightly to reveal a scarred, sneering face. "The little maid. Frankie said you’d be looking for medicine. Five hundred grand... you just bought me a house in Miami, sweetheart."
Elena’s mind raced. The man was twenty feet away. If she ran, he would shoot her in the back.
"Please," Elena begged, stepping back against the refrigerator, feigning pathetic weakness. "I didn't kill Don Vincent! Marco did! Marco poisoned him!"
"Who cares?" the mobster laughed, taking three slow steps toward her, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Marco’s paying the bills now. The old man is history."
"He's not history," Elena whispered.
With blinding speed, Elena grabbed a glass gallon jug of industrial-grade livestock disinfectant from the shelf beside her and smashed it onto the concrete floor between them.
The concentrated ammonia fumes instantly exploded into the air, creating a blinding, choking cloud. The mobster coughed violently, his eyes tearing up, his aim wavering.
Elena didn't run away—she charged directly through the fumes, holding her breath, and rammed the heavy steel door of the refrigeration unit directly into the man’s gun arm.
*Crack!*
The gun discharged, the bullet ricocheting harmlessly off a steel support beam. The mobster howled in pain as his wrist snapped. Elena drove the heel of her boot directly into his groin with all the desperate strength in her body. The man doubled over, gagging on the ammonia and the agony, crashing down into the broken glass.
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Elena snatched the fallen pistol from the floor, turned on her heel, and vanished out the delivery window into the stormy night.
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