Chapter 4 - Blood and Basements
The rain was lashing against the tinted windows of the armored Suburban as Frankie drove recklessly through the slick streets of lower Manhattan. The city lights blurred into streaks of neon red and yellow, mirroring the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
"How bad is it?" I asked, reloading my Sig Sauer P226 in the back seat, the metallic click of the rounds sliding into the magazine sounding like a death knell in the confined space.
"They hit Warehouse Four," Frankie reported, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror to check for tailing vehicles. "Salvatore Moretti sent his heavy hitters. They thought we were tied up with the port authority inspections, but we had our people stationed. It's a full-scale firefight."
My mind was a coiled spring of calculated violence. For months, the Moretti syndicate had been testing our boundaries, trying to carve into our territory while I was distracted by Leo's medical treatments. They mistook a father's distraction for weakness. That was a fatal mistake.
When the Suburban screeched to a halt outside the sprawling brick warehouse in Brooklyn, the air smelled sharply of cordite and burning rubber. Heavy rain hammered the corrugated iron roof.
"Secure the perimeter!" I shouted as I stepped out into the downpour, the cold water instantly soaking through my tailored wool suit.
Two of my senior enforcers rushed over, ducking behind a stack of wooden crates as a volley of automatic gunfire echoed from inside the loading bay.
"Boss! They breached the ground floor!" one of them yelled over the din. "We've got three men wounded, but holding the office corridor."
I didn't hesitate. I drew my weapon, signaled my tactical team, and breached the side entrance.
The interior of the warehouse was a maze of shadows and stacked shipping containers. Flashes of muzzle fire cut through the gloom like lightning storms. Glass shattered overhead as a stray round clipped a skylight.
"Vance!" a voice roared from behind a forklift near the central aisle. It was Marco Moretti, Salvatore's hot-headed nephew. "Your empire is crumbling, you bastard! You thought you could hide behind your doctors and your money!"
I stepped out from behind a steel pillar, raising my weapon with absolute, cold precision.
"You picked the wrong night, Marco," I said, my voice cutting cleanly through the cacophony of war.
Before he could pull the trigger of his submachine gun, my sidearm barked twice. The rounds caught him cleanly in the shoulder and thigh, spinning him violently into a stack of empty pallets. He groaned, dropping his weapon as blood pooled rapidly on the dusty concrete.
My men swarmed the remaining Moretti thugs, disarming and subduing them within minutes. The gunfire died down, replaced by the heavy breathing of wounded men and the steady patter of rain leaking through the damaged roof.
Frankie walked up, wiping a streak of soot from his forehead, and looked down at Marco.
"Clean sweep," Frankie muttered, kicking Marco's fallen weapon away. "Should we send a message to Salvatore?"
"Send him his nephew's cufflinks," I said coldly, holstering my weapon. "Tell him the next time his men step foot in my city, I won't aim for the limbs."
As my men secured the prisoners and tended to the wounded, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a secure satellite alert routed directly from the penthouse security system at the Atoria Grand.
I pulled out the device. A live camera feed popped up on the screen.
My heart seized.
Savannah Reeves was standing in the doorway of my penthouse suite, holding a tray with a glass of milk and a plate of crackers. She had taken my offer.
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And standing right behind her in the private hallway was a man I recognized instantly—one of Salvatore Moretti's elite hitmen, a ghost known as Viktor, who must have slipped past the hotel's lower security details while my primary guard was deployed in Brooklyn.
"Frankie," I whispered, the blood draining from my face as I watched the screen in real-time. "We have a breach at the Atoria. They went after Leo."
