Chapter 14 - The Arrival from Prague
The private airstrip at Teterboro Airport was slick with a fine, freezing mist when the Gulfstream G650 touched down from across the Atlantic. The sleek, unmarked jet taxied quietly toward a secluded hangar near the edge of the tarmac, where two matte-black Moretti SUVs were already idling with their headlights cutting through the murky night.
Inside the leading vehicle, Dante sat in the passenger seat, his expression carved from stone. I sat beside him in the back, wearing a heavy wool coat, my gloved hands resting nervously in my lap. Orion occupied the entire rear cargo area of the SUV, his heavy breathing a steady, calming rhythm in the enclosed space.
"Are you sure you wanted to come along for this?" Dante asked, turning his head to look at me, his gray eyes softening slightly as he reached out to squeeze my hand. "It's going to be cold, and it might get... unpleasant."
"I need to see who is coming," I replied firmly, meeting his gaze without flinching. "For twenty-two years, people have whispered about Prague, about my father, about the men who hunted us. If someone has flown all the way from Europe just to drop another threat on your doorstep, I have a right to know who they are."
Dante studied my face for a long moment, recognizing the stubborn determination that mirrored his own. He gave a single, slow nod. "Stay behind me. No matter what happens."
The jet's airstair folded down with a soft hydraulic hiss, and a figure emerged from the cabin door, pausing briefly at the top of the stairs to adjust the collar of a dark cashmere trench coat.
Even from a distance, there was an air of aristocratic arrogance about him. As he descended the steps into the biting wind, the overhead hangar lights caught his sharp features—piercing blue eyes, slicked-back silver-streaked hair, and a lean, predatory build that suggested years of lethal discipline.
Viktor Vance.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Even though I had only seen his face in old, faded photographs recovered from my father's emergency cache, I recognized him instantly. He was my father's estranged older brother—my uncle—who had betrayed Julian Vance to European syndicates decades ago, leaving us to burn in the Prague safehouse fire that had supposedly killed us all.
Dante opened the car door and stepped out into the mist, his boots crunching against the gravel. Luca and two other armed guards flanked him instantly, their hands resting loosely near their holsters.
Viktor walked down the final stair, stopping a dozen paces away with a sickeningly polite smile on his face. He didn't look like a mob enforcer; he looked like a wealthy European diplomat stepping out for an evening opera. But the aura of absolute ruthlessness rolling off him was unmistakable.
"Dante Moretti," Viktor greeted smoothly, his voice carrying a crisp European accent. "They said the young king of Manhattan was difficult to reach, yet here you are, standing in a drafty hangar at midnight just to greet an old uncle."
"You're trespassing, Viktor," Dante replied, his voice dropping into that lethal, flat register that always signaled impending violence. "The European syndicates were warned to stay out of New York. Crossing the Atlantic without clearance is a declaration of war."
Viktor chuckled softly, spreading his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. "War? Between civilized men? Nonsense, Dante. I didn't come to start a war. I came to reclaim family property."
Before Dante could speak, I pushed the car door open and stepped out onto the tarmac.
Viktor's eyes snapped past Dante's shoulder, locking onto me. For a second, the polite, aristocratic mask slipped, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated shock.
"Well, well," Viktor whispered, taking a slow step forward. "Julian's little ghost. They told me you burned to ash in Prague twenty-two years ago. And yet, look at you... grown up, breathing, and standing right in the middle of Moretti's lethal little collection."
"I'm not property, Viktor," I said, my voice ringing clear and steady across the cold hangar floor, surprising even myself with its absolute composure. "And whatever accounts or files you think you're here to steal from my father's legacy died the night you betrayed him."
Viktor’s smile vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating glare. "You naive little fool. You think your father just hid a few bank accounts? Julian held the encryption keys to the entire European syndicate network—keys that are bound directly to your biometric signature. As long as you draw breath, every major crime syndicate from Berlin to Moscow has a target painted on your back."
"Then it's a good thing she's standing behind me," Dante said coldly.
In a blur of motion, Dante drew his sidearm, the crisp *click* of the safety disengaging echoing sharply off the corrugated metal walls of the hangar. Simultaneously, Viktor's personal bodyguards—four heavily armed men who had descended quietly from the jet's cargo hold—raised their assault rifles, pointing them straight at Dante.
Luca and Moretti's security detail immediately retaliated, leveling their own weapons at Viktor's men. A tense, deadly standoff froze the hangar in absolute silence. A single stray breath or twitch of a finger could turn the cold concrete floor into a bloodbath.
Viktor didn't flinch. He simply smiled, raising his hands slowly.
"Easy, Dante," Viktor purred, his eyes gleaming with malicious triumph. "You can kill me right here, of course. But my death won't stop what's coming. Within forty-eight hours, every assassin on the continent will descend upon Manhattan. You can't protect her forever, Moretti. She is a walking vault, and everyone wants the combination."
Dante didn't lower his weapon. His gray eyes were locked onto Viktor with a terrifying, absolute promise of death.
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"You should have stayed in Europe, Viktor," Dante whispered softly, his voice cutting through the wind. "Because Manhattan is going to be your graveyard."
***
