Chapter 8 - The Ambush and the Escape
"Kill them!" Viktor shrieked, panic instantly replacing his triumphant arrogance as he scrambled backward behind the hood of the Lincoln Navigator.
Chaos erupted in a fraction of a second.
Automatic gunfire shattered the morning silence, bullets pinging off the metal frames of the trucks and shattering the concrete pavement into a shower of white dust.
Dante moved with terrifying speed, shoving Elena behind the heavy engine block of the Mercedes just as a barrage of lead chewed through the passenger door.
"Stay down!" Dante roared over the deafening roar of gunfire, drawing his Beretta and returning fire with lethal, calculated precision.
From the upper gantries and behind the stacked shipping containers, Dante’s loyalist enforcers poured out of the fog, trapping Viktor’s men in a devastating crossfire.
Marco, the scarred lieutenant, raised his weapon to fire at Dante, but a clean shot from Dante’s pistol dropped him instantly before he could pull the trigger.
Viktor, realizing his ambush had turned into a slaughter, scrambled into the back seat of the Lincoln Navigator.
"Drive! Drive, you idiots!" Viktor screamed at the driver.
The Lincoln’s tires squealed violently against the wet concrete as the vehicle peeled out, plowing through a wooden pallet and tearing down the pier toward the exit.
"He's getting away!" Elena yelled over the din, clutching her knees behind the car door.
"Let him go," Dante shouted back, firing two final shots to disable the radiator of an enemy truck before diving behind the Mercedes.
"The ledger he took was a decoy, Elena. The moment he tries to decrypt those fake accounts, he's going to trigger a federal audit that will freeze every single asset he owns."
The gunfire slowly died down, replaced by the groans of wounded men and the hiss of steam rising from bullet-riddled radiators.
Within two minutes, the pier was entirely secured by Dante’s men.
Dante stood up slowly, holstering his smoking weapon, and extended a hand down to help Elena to her feet.
She took his hand, her legs shaking slightly, but her eyes were clear and sharp.
"Is it really over?" she whispered, looking around at the smoking wreckage of the ambush.
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"For Viktor's empire?" Dante replied, a dark, satisfied smirk crossing his face.
"It hasn't even begun to burn yet."
