Chapter 5 - The Butcher’s Awakening
Vincent did not drop from the rafters like an acrobat; he came down like an anvil.
He landed on the hood of the second tactical operator with both combat boots, driving the man into the frozen gravel with a concussive shock that shattered the suspension of the parked forklift beside them. In the same fluid, terrifying motion, Vincent caught the fallen guard’s carbine by the sling, swung the heavy barrel in a horizontal arc, and smashed the receiver into the throat of the third operator.
The man went down with a wet, choking gasp, clutching his crushed windpipe as his weapon fired a wild, three-round burst into the sky.
The fourth guard scrambled backward, slipping in the mud, bringing his weapon up to bear on Vincent’s chest.
Crack.
Vincent’s Glock fired once from the hip. The fourth guard collapsed backward against the iron wheel of a boxcar, his weapon splashing into a puddle of grease and slush.
The entire engagement had lasted less than four seconds.
Four professional, private-contract mercenaries neutralized without a single wasted movement, without a single shout, without a single breath of hesitation.
Through the rain-streaked glass of the Impala, I watched the man I had married stand amidst the fallen men, steam rising from his broad shoulders in the freezing night air. He didn't look like a mob boss. He looked like an ancient warlord who had finally remembered how to wield his sword after fourteen years in chains.
Across the gravel clearing, near the doors of the main terminal, Julian Vance stood frozen beneath his umbrella.
The cigar had fallen from his mouth. His tailored coat was spattered with gray mud from Tyler’s frantic scrambling. For the first time in his pampered, calculating life, the architect of shadows looked at the man he had betrayed and saw an executioner.
"Vincent..." Julian choked out, his aristocratic composure shattering into shrill, reedy panic. He raised his gold-headed cane like a defensive foil. "Vincent, wait! Listen to me! It was the commission! The five families demanded a transition! You were too sick—"
Vincent didn't answer. He didn't sign. He didn't reach for his legal pad.
He simply walked forward through the hail, his boots crunching methodically across the limestone ballast, his empty eyes locked on Julian’s throat.
Tyler scrambled backward on his hands and knees, clawing at the mud, screaming like an animal. "Emmy! Emmy, help me! Tell him to stop! He’s crazy! He’s going to slaughter us!"
I stepped out of the Impala.
The cold wind whipped my hair across my face, stinging my cheeks with needles of ice. I looked down at my brother—the boy who had stolen my mother’s cancer medication to buy cheap cocaine, the man who had traded his only sister to a suspected murderer for the price of two bottles of cheap whiskey.
"You told me I was worth fifty dollars, Tyler," I said, my voice cutting through the roar of the wind with an icy clarity that surprised even myself. "Let's see what you’re worth to Julian."
Julian didn't look at Tyler. He spun on his heel and lunged toward the heavy steel doors of the terminal warehouse, slamming the sliding latch shut from the inside just as Vincent reached the threshold.
The heavy iron door groaned beneath the impact of Vincent’s shoulder, but the commercial deadbolts held.
From inside the warehouse, through the ventilation grates, the sound of an automated public address system crackled to life:
"Attention members of the High Commission. The roll call for the unified leadership vote will commence in three minutes in the central gallery. Please take your seats."
Julian had fled inside to the council. He was going to take the vote, claim Vincent was dead, and use thirty armed syndicate capos to execute his succession before the truth could walk through the front door.
Vincent didn't waste time battering the steel door.
He turned toward the Impala, his eyes catching mine through the darkness. He pointed at the heavy front bumper of the SUV parked beside the tracks, then pointed toward the wall of the terminal where an old, bricked-up freight arch was covered by corrugated tin siding.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and typed three words into the screen before holding it up to my face:
Drive the truck.
I looked at the heavy, armored black Suburban idling near the tracks.
The engine was running. The transmission was engaged.
May you like
I looked at Vincent Moretti—the deaf man who had bled for my honor, the king who had given me a bedroom with a lock on the door when my own family had treated me like cattle.
"Get in the passenger seat," I said.
