Chapter 9 - The Final Stand
The battle in the warehouse seemed to freeze in time. The roar of gunfire faded into the background as my entire focus narrowed down to the small red button on the remote detonator in Salieri’s hand.
"Vincent!" Viktor yelled from behind a container, raising his rifle toward the gantry. "I can take the shot!"
"No!" I shouted back, holding my hand up. "If he drops the detonator, it might trigger a dead-man's switch! Don't shoot!"
Salieri grinned, a sickening, triumphant smile spreading across his scarred face. "Drop your weapons, Vincent. All of you. Hand over your armor and bow down, or I blow that foundation into the sky right now."
Marcus stood beside Salieri, a smug, vengeful look on his face. "You took everything from me, Romano. My money, my reputation, my freedom. Now I get to watch you lose the only thing you care about."
I slowly lowered my rifle to the concrete floor. Viktor and my men looked at me in shock, but following my lead, they slowly lowered their weapons as well.
Salieri laughed, stepping closer to the edge of the metal railing. "Look at the great Don Romano, kneeling in the dirt for a child! You've gone soft, Vincent. You're weak!"
As Salieri raised his arm to gloat, a small red dot of light suddenly appeared on Marcus’s forehead.
Marcus paused, noticing the red reflection on the steel railing in front of him. "What the...?"
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A high-powered sniper round shattered the high glass window near the ceiling of the warehouse. The bullet passed cleanly through the air, striking the remote detonator directly in Salieri’s hand, shattering the electronic device into a cloud of plastic and wires before he could compress the trigger.
Salieri screamed as the kinetic force tore the device from his fingers, breaking his hand.
Before anyone could process what had happened, the warehouse’s skylights shattered completely. Four tactical rappelling ropes dropped down from the ceiling, and a secondary team of elite Romano operatives—led by my head of covert intelligence—swung down into the room, opening fire on Salieri’s remaining guards with surgical precision.
"Clear the gantry!" I roared, picking up my rifle from the floor.
I sprinted up the metal stairs leading to the upper walkway three steps at a time. Marcus tried to raise his submachine gun to fire at me, but I closed the distance instantly, grabbing the barrel of his weapon, twisting it out of his hands, and striking him across the jaw with the butt of my rifle.
Marcus went down, sliding across the metal grating, coughing blood.
Salieri, clutching his ruined, bleeding hand, backed away toward the edge of the platform, his face twisted in sheer terror as I approached him like an unstoppable force of nature.
"How... how did you know?" Salieri rasped, stepping back until his spine hit the guardrail. "How did you find the explosives?"
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I stood before him, my shadow looming over his broken frame.
"You underestimated the people in that building, Salieri," I said, my voice dropping to a low, icy gravel. "Zoe Williams doesn't just draw pictures. She notices everything."
