Chapter 18 - The Bratva’s Ultimatum
The abandoned rail yard off the industrial docks of South Chicago was a graveyard of rusted boxcars and overgrown weeds, bathed in the eerie orange glow of distant refinery flares.
My Maybach rolled to a halt fifty yards from a cluster of empty shipping containers.
I stepped out alone into the humid night air, my dark wool coat swishing around my ankles, my hands resting loosely at my sides.
“Rostov!” I called out, my voice carrying effortlessly across the deserted tracks. “You wanted to talk? Step out of the dark!”
A slow, heavy pair of boots crunched against the gravel.
From between two rusted railcars stepped Viktor Rostov. He was a massive mountain of a man, built like a brick bulkhead, his bald head scarred from knife fights in Siberian labor camps, wearing an unbuttoned leather jacket over a thick gold chain. Behind him stood six heavily armed Bratva enforcers brandishing submachine guns.
Rostov stopped ten paces away, flashing a yellow-toothed, predatory grin.
“Salvatore,” Rostov rumbled in his thick, gravelly Russian accent. “Still wearing the expensive suits, I see. Still pretending you own the Windy City.”
“You’re trespassing, Viktor,” I said, my voice completely devoid of fear. “Chicago isn't New York. You bring your goons into my territory without an invitation, you don't leave alive.”
Rostov laughed—a deep, booming sound that rattled the empty boxcars around us.
“You think this is about territory, Gallo? You think I flew across the country over some old warehouses?” Rostov shook his head, his smile vanishing into a cold, dead stare. “You took something that belonged to my family trust. That Taylor Street property? It was the anchor of our Midwest laundering operations before you pushed us out.”
“It’s legally owned by my wife now,” I said, my hand inching closer to the grip of my concealed pistol.
Rostov’s eyes flashed with pure venom.
“Your wife,” he sneered. “The little cleaning girl you picked off the streets. How romantic, Salvatore. But here is the reality: you give me the deed back, sign over fifty percent of your North Side shipping routes, and maybe—just maybe—I won't send my boys to your estate to slice her throat while the boy watches.”
The air in the rail yard dropped twenty degrees.
Every single rule of negotiation, every ounce of diplomatic restraint, shattered instantly.
“You shouldn't have said that, Viktor,” I whispered.
Before Rostov could blink, I drew my Sig Sauer and fired twice.
THIP-THIP.
The bullets didn't hit Rostov—they didn't need to. They struck the gas canisters strapped to the belt of the Bratva enforcer standing directly behind him, puncturing the pressurized tanks with a sharp hiss.
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“Get them!” Rostov roared, diving behind a railcar.
At that exact second, the darkness behind the boxcars erupted into gunfire. Vinnie, Dante, and a dozen elite Gallo enforcers swarmed the rail yard from all sides, pinning the Bratva soldiers in a devastating crossfire.
