Chapter 7 - The Blood on the Gates
The heavy iron security gates of the Waverly compound groaned under the impact of a stolen municipal snowplow.
Sparks showered into the sleet as the massive steel bars bent inward, screaming in protest before the chain-drive mechanism snapped with a sharp pop. Behind the snowplow, four matte-black vans swarmed through the breach like roaches pouring out of a cracked foundation, their high beams sweeping across the manicured lawns and stone fountains of my home.
I stood on the grand stone portico of the mansion, my hands resting casually in my pockets, watching the invasion unfold.
Beside me, Kane racked the bolt of an assault rifle, the metallic clatter sounding like a death knell in the freezing night air. Thirty of my best enforcers lined the upper balcony and the ground-floor pillars, their weapons trained dead-center on the driveway below.
The doors of the lead van flew open, and a heavy-set man with a braided goatee and a scar running from his ear to his collarbone stepped out into the snow. It was Dante Rossi, the ruthless enforcer who had taken over the East District syndicate after old man Rossi died. He held a submachine gun casually across his chest, grinning like a shark smelling blood in the water.
"Well, well, well!" Rossi shouted over the idle roar of the van engines, his voice echoing off the stone facade. "Look at the great Victor Waverly, standing out in the cold like a king without a kingdom! You really thought you could wipe out my scouts at the warehouse and keep your little pet dog, didn't you?"
I didn't raise my voice when I answered, but years of training and raw authority carried my words straight down the driveway with terrifying clarity.
"You stepped onto my property, Dante," I said smoothly. "Which means you won't be walking back off it."
Rossi laughed—a loud, barking sound that was cut short when I flicked two fingers into the air.
Crack-crack-crack.
Three simultaneous sniper rounds from the upper balcony shattered the windshields of the trailing vans, instantly pinning their drivers behind shattered glass.
"Light them up," I commanded softly.
The portico erupted into a deafening wall of controlled tactical fire. The enforcers of the East District syndicate didn't even have time to raise their weapons before a crossfire from the pillars and the balcony chewed through their vanguard like a scythe through wheat.
Rossi scrambled behind the engine block of the snowplow, cursing furiously as rounds sparked off the steel blade inches from his face. "Hold your fire! HOLD YOUR FIRE! We have a proposition!"
I walked slowly down the stone steps, my boots crunching on the fresh snow, ignoring the whistling rounds that occasionally ricocheted off the marble balustrades. Kane flanked me step-for-step, his rifle never wavering from Rossi’s position.
I stopped ten feet away from the snowplow, looking down at Rossi as he cowered behind the rusted metal.
"You don't get to make propositions, Dante," I said, my voice completely devoid of mercy. "You burned a house down with a woman inside it. You terrorized a child. And you had the staggering arrogance to bring your war to my doorstep."
Rossi peeked around the edge of the blade, his eyes wild with frantic desperation. "Elena had the keys, Victor! She had the vault codes! We needed them to survive after you choked out our shipping routes! If you kill me, you'll never know where her brother hid the secondary backup drives!"
I stared at him for a long, quiet moment.
"I don't need backup drives, Dante," I said softly. "I have everything I ever lost sleeping upstairs in my bed."
I raised my P30, aimed down at the snow right between Rossi's boots, and pulled the trigger.
Bang.
May you like
Rossi shrieked, pressing himself flat against the frozen ground.
"Kane," I said without looking back. "Tie him up and throw him in the basement holding cells. Interrogate him until he tells me the names of every single man who touched that house in the suburbs. Then bury him where the snow won't melt until July."
