Chapter 5 - The Siege of St. Jude's
The flash of flash-bang grenades turned the grand parlor into a roaring inferno of light and sound.
The two bodyguards behind Elder Nicholas drew their suppressed pistols with incredible speed, but Marco and the Boss’s elite guards, who had dropped from the hidden ceiling alcoves above, opened fire instantly.
Heavy automatic gunfire ripped through the room. The Boss threw himself backward over the heavy oak sofa, cradling Maya against his chest, using his broad shoulders as a human shield to protect the infant from flying splinters and ricocheting lead.
Brutus exploded into motion. The massive war dog launched itself across the coffee table, slamming its three-hundred-pound frame into Nicholas’s lead bodyguard, sinking its heavy jaw into the man’s tactical vest and tearing him to the floor with terrifying strength.
—Clear the room! Marco screamed over the deafening roar of weapons, laying down a wall of fire that forced the mercenaries outside to take cover behind the stone patio pillars.
Outside, the mercenaries who had surrounded the estate weren't fighting confused street guards—they were caught in a brutal crossfire. Frank had activated the compound's automated defense turrets mounted in the roof eaves, while fifty loyal syndicate soldiers, led by the veteran lieutenants, emerged from the underground tunnels to envelop the attackers from behind.
Inside the smoke-filled parlor, Elder Nicholas was crawling on his hands and knees across the blood-stained rug, his aristocratic dignity completely shattered, his silver cane abandoned in the rubble.
The Boss stood up from behind the shattered sofa. His wool coat was torn, a line of blood trickled down his cheek where a glass shard had grazed his skin, but his posture was that of an invincible titan. Maya was completely unharmed, sleeping peacefully through the chaos, wrapped tightly in her blanket.
The Boss walked over to where Nicholas was cowering against the base of a marble statue. He reached down with one hand, grabbing the old billionaire by his silk lapels, and hoisted him off the floor as if he weighed nothing at all.
—Your Council thought they owned the world because you had money and mercenaries, Nicholas, the Boss snarled, his face inches from the old man's terrifyingly pale face. —But you forgot that men who fight for a paycheck will always break before men who fight for their family!
Outside, the sound of gunfire rapidly died down, replaced by the shouts of Moretti’s men securing the prisoners and the low, rhythmic thrum of heavy tactical helicopters arriving overhead—not Council helicopters, but state police transports led by the city's chief commissioner, whom the Boss had privately backed for fifteen years.
Nicholas looked out the shattered window, seeing his high-priced mercenary team being disarmed and forced to their knees in the mud by the combined forces of the syndicate and local law enforcement.
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—You... you set a trap for the High Council... Nicholas gasped, his breath coming in ragged, terrified hitches.
—You came to my home to steal my sister's child, the Boss said quietly, his voice carrying an absolute, merciless finality. —You leave this city in chains, Nicholas. And your Council is finished.
