Chapter 7 - The Last Stand at MidnightThe sound of gunfire in the concrete garage was deafening, bouncing off the low ceiling like rolling thunder.
Garrett stepped into the open, a target for every gun in the room, and began to move. He wasn't just fighting; he was executing a systematic, cold-blooded dismantling of two separate syndicates.
Bang. Bang.
Two Bratva enforcers went down before they could adjust their sights. He lunged behind a concrete pillar just as a blast from the Remington shotgun blew a chunk of masonry the size of a watermelon into dust inches from his head.
"Kill him! Kill the bastard!" Vincent Ashford’s enforcer screamed, pumping the shotgun for another round.
Garrett didn't wait. He vaulted over the hood of a parked Mercedes, fired twice through the windshield of the oncoming vehicle, and dropped the shotgun-wielding enforcer with a clean round to the chest.
In less than ninety seconds, the garage fell into a heavy, smoke-choked silence, broken only by the hiss of a punctured radiator and the groans of wounded men bleeding out on the oil-stained floor.
Garrett stood amidst the carnage, his shirt stained with gunpowder and soot, his breathing heavy but controlled. He wiped a streak of blood from his forehead with the back of his hand and turned back toward the SUV.
Mave was standing there, trembling from head to toe, holding Posie tightly against her chest. She hadn't taken the tunnel. She had stayed right where he left her, watching every second of the slaughter with wide, horrified eyes.
"I told you to run," Garrett rasped, walking toward her through the haze.
"I'm done running, Garrett," she whispered, her voice finally steady, carrying a quiet strength that matched his own. "If we live, we live together. If we die here... at least we stop playing games."
Garrett reached out, his bloodstained hands gently cupping her face, and pulled her toward him, pressing his forehead against hers in the dark, silent garage.
"We live," he promised.
Before she could answer, the heavy steel exit gate at the far end of the garage began to grind upward.
Headlights cut through the smoke. Not a Maybach. Not an Escalade.
A sleek, unmarked black helicopter hovered just outside the loading bay, its rotors kicking up a gale-force wind that sent papers and dust swirling into the air. The side door slid open, and Mateo—bleeding from his shoulder but grinning through the pain—signaled frantically from inside the cabin.
"Boss! Pilot’s secured! We have a clear window to Teterboro!"
Garrett scooped Mave and the child into his arms, lifting them both effortlessly against his chest as he sprinted toward the waiting aircraft.
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As the chopper lifted off the concrete floor, rising smoothly into the rainy New York night, Garrett looked down through the reinforced glass at the sprawling, glittering city below—an empire he had conquered, lost, and finally burned to the ground.
And as he felt little Posie’s small hand reach up to tentatively stroke his scarred jaw, he knew he had won the only war that mattered.
