Chapter 7 - BLOOD IN THE COURTYARDThe Chicago rain had turned the sprawling front courtyard into a quagmire of mud, crushed rose bushes, and burning wreckage.
Frank Marcone—a silver-haired, impeccably dressed wolf of a man in his late sixties—stood beneath a black umbrella held by a trembling lieutenant. Around him, a dozen armed enforcers fanned out across the wet gravel, their assault rifles pointed at the grand double doors of the mansion.
"Nathan!" Marcone’s voice boomed across the courtyard, cutting through the hiss of the rain. "It’s over! You’re trapped inside a cage, and the door is locked from the outside! Come out on your knees, and maybe I’ll let you die with a shred of dignity!"
The heavy oak doors slowly creaked open.
Marcone smiled, lowering his chin, expecting to see a broken, pathetic man pushing his own wheelchair into the mud.
Instead, Nathan Caldwell rolled out into the center of the courtyard, completely exposed to the rain, his dark trench coat billowing slightly in the wind. He wasn't cowering. He wasn't begging.
He held a cigar between his teeth, unlit, and stared at Marcone with the cold, dead eyes of an apex predator.
"You talk too much, Frank," Nathan called out, his voice echoing across the courtyard. "Just like your niece warned me you would."
Marcone’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. "Claire? You found her letter. Then you know she was the one who set you up."
"She tried," Nathan replied smoothly. "And then she realized that the monsters she was working for were far worse than the man sitting in this chair."
"Kill him!" Marcone snarled, raising his hand. "Turn him to Swiss cheese!"
Before a single mercenary could pull a trigger, a series of deafening explosions rocked the outer perimeter of the estate.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Flames erupted from the gatehouse and the side driveways. Red laser dots suddenly appeared dancing across the chests of Marcone’s enforcers. From the upper balconies of the mansion, Viktor and a dozen hidden snipers opened fire with pinpoint, devastating accuracy.
Marcone’s men dropped like marionettes with their strings cut, scrambling in blind panic as the ambush completely inverted.
Marcone stared in shock, looking around as his private army was dismantled in under sixty seconds. "What is this? Where did they come from?"
"You forgot one golden rule of Chicago, Frank," Nathan said, rolling slowly forward through the mud, the heavy rain plastering his dark hair to his forehead. "You never trust a consigliere who wants your crown... and you never underestimate a boss who has nothing left to lose."
Marcone’s hand dipped frantically toward the revolver tucked inside his tailored wool coat.
He drew the weapon, leveling it directly at Nathan’s chest.
"Die, you cripple—"
CRACK!
A single, suppressed gunshot echoed from the mansion's second-story window.
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Marcone’s eyes widened. The revolver slipped from his trembling fingers, splashing into the muddy puddle at his feet. A bright crimson stain blossomed across the chest of his expensive suit. He staggered backward, gasped for air, and collapsed face-first into the mud.
Silence fell over the courtyard, broken only by the steady patter of the rain and the crackle of distant flames.
