Chapter 4 - The Trap at the Rail Yards
The rusted skeleton of the abandoned rail yard loomed like a graveyard of iron giants under the pale moonlight.
Joseph stepped out of his black sedan alone, leaving Marcus and a dozen armed enforcers hidden half a mile down the access road.
“I’m here, Viktor!” Joseph shouted into the wind, his voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls of the derelict warehouses.
A heavy metal door creaked open fifty yards away, casting a harsh square of yellow light across the gravel-strewn ground.
Stepping out from the shadows was a tall, silver-haired man wearing an expensive tailored trench coat, holding a heavy revolver loosely by his side.
“It’s good to see you looking older, Joseph,” Viktor Volkov mocked, a cruel smirk playing across his scarred face.
“Where is Rose?” Joseph demanded, taking two slow steps forward while keeping his hands visible at his sides.
“She’s right here, safe and sound—for now,” Viktor replied, snapping his fingers twice.
Two armed thugs dragged a woman out from the doorway, her hands bound behind her back and a heavy cloth sack pulled over her head.
“Mom!” Audrey’s voice suddenly screamed from behind a stack of shipping crates near the edge of the yard.
Joseph whipped his head around in sheer disbelief, his heart stopping as he saw Audrey scrambling out from the back of his own SUV.
“Audrey! I told you to stay at the mansion!” Joseph roared, forgetting his cautious approach in a wave of blind panic.
“I couldn't just sit there while they had my mother!” Audrey yelled, running toward the open clearing despite Marcus chasing desperately behind her.
Viktor’s eyes lit up with malicious glee as he watched the young waitress sprint into the middle of his trap.
“Well, look at what the cat dragged in,” Viktor laughed, raising his weapon to point directly at Audrey’s chest. “Two birds with one stone. How poetic.”
Marcus lunged forward, tackling Audrey to the ground just as a bullet sparked off the concrete inches from her boots.
“Sniper in the crane tower!” Marcus screamed into his comm-link, pulling Audrey behind the heavy steel axle of a derailed train car.
Joseph drew his own weapon in a blur of motion, firing three rapid shots toward the crane operator’s cabin high above the yard.
A heavy thud echoed through the air as the sniper’s body slumped over the railing of the crane, tumbling down onto the corrugated roof below.
“You miserable bastard!” Joseph snarled, closing the distance toward Viktor with terrifying speed.
Viktor shoved Rose’s bound figure toward his thugs, raising his pistol to meet Joseph’s charge head-on.
“Shoot him!” Viktor screamed to his remaining men.
Before the thugs could squeeze their triggers, the night lit up with the muzzle flashes of a dozen hidden enforcers opening fire from the perimeter.
Viktor’s men dropped their weapons one by one, cut down by precise suppressive fire orchestrated by Marcus’s tactical team.
Viktor cursed loudly, grabbing Rose by the hair and pressing the cold barrel of his gun directly against her temple.
“One more step, Joseph, and her brains decorate this concrete!” Viktor yelled, his voice cracking with rising hysteria.
Joseph froze in his tracks, lowering his weapon an inch as he stared into Rose’s terrified, tear-filled eyes.
“Let her go, Viktor,” Joseph pleaded, his voice breaking with an emotion he had never shown an enemy. “This is between you and me.”
Rose shook her head violently, tears streaming down her pale cheeks as she looked past Joseph toward the train car.
“Audrey... run,” Rose choked out, her voice raw and desperate.
Audrey peeked out from behind the steel axle, her hazel eyes locking onto her mother for the very first time in an active combat zone.
“Mom!” Audrey screamed, breaking cover and sprinting across the open gravel toward them.
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Viktor turned his pistol away from Rose, swinging the barrel directly toward the charging young woman with a sick grin.
“Say goodbye to your daughter, Joseph!” Viktor shouted, tightening his finger around the trigger.
