Chapter 10 - BLOOD IN THE BOARDROOM
The first shot was fired not by the syndicate bodyguards, but by Sarah Cole.
Her suppressed submachine gun coughed twice with a muffled, rhythmic hiss.
The first Castiglione envoy took two rounds directly to the center of his chest.
The impact lifted him off his feet and slammed him backward over the mahogany table, scattering crystal glasses and scotch bottles in a shower of amber spray.
The second envoy cleared his holster, but Sarah had already transitioned targets.
A single round tore through his right shoulder, sending his chrome pistol spinning across the floorboards.
"Cover!" Vincent roared.
He lunged forward, grabbed the edge of the heavy oak conference table, and heaved it upward with superhuman adrenaline.
The massive two-thousand-pound table tilted onto its side, creating an impenetrable barricade of solid wood across the center of the hall.
A deafening barrage of automatic gunfire erupted from the perimeter guards.
Rounds slammed into the thick oak table, sending splinters and lead fragments singing through the air.
Anthony hit the floor behind Vincent, clutching the laptop to his chest like a newborn child.
"Anthony! The display!" Vincent yelled over the roar of gunfire.
"Patching through now!" Anthony screamed back.
He jammed a wireless transmitter into the laptop’s port.
Forty feet above them, the massive commercial television screens mounted to the stone pillars—screens used for quarterly financial presentations—flickered to life on battery backup.
The screens did not display charts or market indices.
They displayed the high-resolution banking records from the Zurich accounts.
They displayed Salvatore Rossi’s signature on the twenty-five-million-dollar wire transfer.
They displayed the audio recording of Daniel Price’s final interrogation at the south docks.
And booming through the estate’s auxiliary surround sound system was Salvatore’s own voice:
"Make sure Vincent is in the rear passenger seat before the gravel truck enters the intersection."
The firing in the room began to falter.
Capo Luciano peeked over the edge of an overturned chair, his eyes fixed on the massive screens above.
"Salvatore... you sold the entire shipping fleet to the Castigliones?" Luciano bellowed across the room.
"You set up the Don to give our city to New York?"
"Don't listen to it! It's a digital fabrication!" Salvatore shrieked, backing toward the service door behind the limestone fireplace.
"Guards! Kill them all! Twenty million dollars to whoever takes Vincent's head!"
Five of Salvatore’s personal mercenaries broke cover, advancing on Vincent's position with shotguns raised.
Sarah Cole did not wait for them to close the distance.
She vaulted over the edge of the overturned table, staying low beneath the line of return fire.
She engaged the first mercenary with a combat sweep, taking his legs out from beneath him with a crushing strike.
As the man fell, she stripped the shotgun from his hands, spun on her heel, and fired a heavy blast into the second attacker’s chest armor.
The concussive boom echoed deafeningly in the enclosed hall.
The remaining three mercenaries hesitated.
That fraction of a second was all Vincent needed.
Vincent rose from behind the oak barrier, his customized automatic barking with absolute, rhythmic precision.
Three shots.
Three hits.
The three mercenaries dropped to the floor, their weapons clattering harmlessly against the stone.
The remaining syndicate bodyguards—the men who had served Vincent for ten years before Salvatore bought the perimeter—immediately threw their weapons onto the floorboards.
"Hold your fire!" Capo Luciano shouted, raising both hands above his head.
"Hold your fire! The Don is alive!"
The room fell into an eerie, ringing silence, punctuated only by the crackle of burning logs in the fireplace and the groans of the wounded.
Vincent stepped around the shattered table, his shoes crunching on broken glass.
He looked at the fourteen capos who had sat in judgment of his empire ten minutes ago.
None of them dared to meet his eyes.
"Who voted for Salvatore?" Vincent asked.
His voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried the weight of a guillotine blade.
Not a single hand rose.
Luciano stepped forward, his head bowed in absolute submission.
"We were told you were dead, Vincent."
"We were told Anthony had betrayed the family."
"We did not know."
Vincent looked at Luciano for five agonizing seconds.
"Pick up your chair, Luciano."
Luciano hurried to obey, righting his fallen seat with trembling hands.
"Where is Salvatore?" Vincent asked, scanning the shadows behind the fireplace.
Sarah was already examining the service door near the stone hearth.
The heavy brass latch had been thrown from the other side.
"He took the private elevator to the executive terrace," Sarah reported, her tactical light illuminating fresh shoe prints in the dust.
"There is an emergency helicopter pad on the roof."
Anthony looked up from his computer, his face flushed with adrenaline.
"The transponder on the estate’s Sikorsky helicopter just activated," Anthony called out.
"He’s spinning the rotors."
Vincent turned toward the service stairs, his weapon drawn.
"He doesn't leave this house alive," Vincent said.
Sarah grabbed his shoulder, her grip tightening with professional authority.
"He has two personal protection officers on that roof with automatic carbines, Vincent."
"If you run up those stairs blindly, you are walking into an elevated choke point."
Vincent looked into her eyes.
The fury in his chest was a raging inferno, but Sarah’s gaze was a sheet of arctic ice.
"What is the tactical route, Sarah?" Vincent asked, yielding once more to her command.
Sarah checked the remaining rounds in her magazine.
"External fire escape on the western facade."
"We take the high ground while his pilot runs the pre-flight checks."
"Anthony, lock down the airspace transponder and kill the estate runway beacons."
Anthony nodded fiercely.
"Done in thirty seconds."
May you like
Sarah turned toward the shattered terrace windows.
"Move," she said.
