Chapter 4 - Blood on the AsphaltThe hallway outside apartment 3B was choked with white smoke and the acrid smell of cordite.
Through the haze, two figures clad in midnight-black tactical gear and wearing full-face ballistic masks advanced with military precision, submachine guns raised. They didn't shout. They didn't hesitate. They were professional exterminators.
Vincent didn't wait for them to acquire their targets.
He stepped out of the doorway, firing twice with terrifying, mechanical precision. The first round caught the lead operative square in the throat through a micro-gap in his body armor; the man dropped like a dead weight, his submachine gun clattering against the linoleum.
The second operative swung his barrel toward Vincent, but before he could squeeze the trigger, a heavy dark silhouette dropped from the ceiling rafters above.
It was Daniel Cross.
With a brutal, sweeping kick, Daniel knocked the operative's weapon aside, slammed the man's head into the concrete wall with a sickening crunch, and pinned him to the floor.
"Clear!" Daniel yelled, pressing his boot onto the unconscious operative's windpipe while keeping one hand on his comms unit. "Boss, the back exit is secured! The kids and Rachel are in the Maybach. My extraction team is moving them to the safehouse on the lake!"
Vincent lowered his smoking pistol, his chest rising and falling in slow, controlled rhythms. He walked over to the downed operative, knelt down, and roughly ripped the ballistic mask off the man's face.
Vincent froze.
The man’s face was bruised, bleeding, and entirely unknown to him. But etched into the skin of his right forearm was a distinct tattoo: a coiled serpent wrapping around a dagger.
The Lucian Syndicate? No.
Vincent knew every ranking enforcer in the Lucian family. This wasn't their mark. This tattoo belonged to someone far more dangerous, someone Vincent thought he had buried six feet under a decade ago.
The Iron Cross Cartel.
"Boss," Daniel whispered, walking over and looking down at the tattoo. His face lost all its color. "That’s... that’s Viktor’s private unit. But Viktor died in the explosion at the docks six years ago. You watched his yacht burn!"
"Vessels can be staged, Daniel," Vincent said softly, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper that made even his hardened second-in-command shudder. "Corpses can be swapped. And someone has been paying very close attention to my movements for the last six months."
Vincent stood up slowly, wiping a speck of ash from his cuff.
"They didn't come here tonight to kill Noah," Vincent realized with sudden, chilling clarity. "They came to confirm if he was still alive. And now that they know... the war has just begun."
"What are your orders?" Daniel asked, his hand tightening on his weapon.
Vincent looked down the dark, soot-stained hallway toward the stairs where his ten-year-old son—the boy he thought he had lost forever—had just been rushed away into the night.
"Move everyone to the Sanctuary," Vincent commanded, his eyes flashing with lethal intent. "And bring me the security logs from Hale House for the last six months. Every camera. Every visitor. Every maid."
May you like
Daniel stiffened. "Boss... are you saying the leak is inside your own estate?"
"Someone let them know where I was going tonight," Vincent said coldly, walking toward the exit. "And there are very few people in this city who knew I was investigating County Road Seven."
