Chapter 3 - Hunting the Serpent
The rain turned into a freezing sleet by three-thirty in the morning over the industrial wasteland of Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Old iron cranes stood like skeletal monsters against the oily black water of the East River.
Most of the warehouses along Commercial Street had been abandoned since the shipbuilders left in the late eighties.
Except for one.
A former poultry processing plant sat at the end of a dead-end wharf, its corrugated metal roof rattling under the wind.
Three black Cadillac Escalades were parked haphazardly near the loading dock, their exhausts puffing white smoke into the frigid night.
A red neon sign flickering behind a cracked glass window read: Empire Meat & Cold Storage.
Beneath that sign was Viktor Reznov’s kingdom.
It was an underground hub for illegal dog fights, high-stakes poker games, and predatory debt collection.
Kolov had placed Reznov here to act as his blunt instrument on the Brooklyn waterfront.
We parked the Maybach two blocks away in the shadow of a rusted water tower.
Marco checked his sidearm one last time and pulled a heavy tactical flashlight from the door pocket.
"We have six men stationed at the perimeter exits," Marco said quietly.
"No one leaves through the back alleys."
"Should I call the entry team to breach the front?"
"No," I replied, stepping out into the slush.
"A breach creates panic."
"Panic makes men run."
"I want Viktor sitting right where he is when I walk through the door."
We walked through the iron side gate, which hung loose on its hinges.
Two guards in heavy padded parkas were leaning against a rusted dumpster, smoking unfiltered cigarettes beneath a corrugated awning.
One of them had a short-barreled shotgun slung over his shoulder.
Before the guard could take the cigarette from his lips, Marco moved with the terrifying speed of a former special forces operator.
He closed the distance in two strides, slammed his palm upward into the guard's chin, and drove the back of his skull into the brick wall.
The man collapsed into the slush without making a sound.
The second guard reached for his waistband, but Marco’s gloved hand clamped around his throat like a hydraulic vise.
Marco spun him around and rammed his face into the metal dumpster with a dull, hollow thud.
The shotgun was caught before it hit the ground.
Marco laid both unconscious men behind the dumpster and stripped them of their radios.
"Front door is unlocked, Boss," Marco whispered, wiping grease from his knuckles.
We pushed through the heavy steel fire door and stepped into the suffocating warmth of the warehouse.
The smell of stale beer, cigar smoke, sweat, and copper hung thick in the air.
In the center of the vast concrete room, an old boxing ring made of rusted scaffolding pipes and chicken wire was illuminated by two halogen work lights.
Around it, thirty men in leather jackets, tracksuits, and cheap suits were shouting at two bloodied men wrestling on the canvas.
In the far corner, behind a glass-walled former foreman’s office, sat Viktor Reznov.
He had his combat boots kicked up on a steel desk, counting stacks of banded twenties under a green desk lamp.
On his right wrist, visible beneath the rolled-up sleeve of his black thermal shirt, was the tattoo.
A coiled black viper with crimson venom dripping from its fangs.
I walked across the warehouse floor.
My leather shoes clicked against the concrete with a steady, rhythmic cadence.
A few men near the boxing ring turned around to see who had entered without an escort.
When they saw my tailored charcoal overcoat, my pristine white collar, and the total lack of hesitation in my stride, the shouting around the ring began to die down.
One man, a scarred brawler with missing front teeth, stepped into my path with a beer bottle in his hand.
"Hey, fancy boy, you lost?" he growled, reaching out to shove my chest.
I didn't break stride.
Marco came up from my flank, grabbed the man’s extended wrist, twisted it until the bone splintered with a sickening crack, and drove his knee into the man's sternum.
The brawler dropped to the floor, gasping for air and vomiting foam onto the concrete.
The entire warehouse went completely silent.
The music from a portable speaker stopped.
Thirty men reached into their coats and waistbands.
"Dominic Castellano," a voice called out from the glass office.
Viktor Reznov took his feet off the desk and stood up slowly.
He was a mountain of a man, six-foot-four, with a shaven head covered in prison ink and a crooked nose that had been broken five times.
He smiled, revealing a row of silver-capped teeth.
He picked up an aluminum baseball bat leaning against the filing cabinet and stepped out of the office onto the warehouse floor.
"I didn't think the King of Fifth Avenue came to Brooklyn without a police escort," Viktor sneered, resting the bat against his shoulder.
"Did you come to negotiate terms for the Red Hook docks, Castellano?"
"Or did you come to thank me for returning your maid in one piece?"
A few of his thugs let out nervous, mocking chuckles.
I stopped five feet from him.
My hands remained resting comfortably inside the pockets of my overcoat.
I looked at the bat, then looked at the snake tattoo on his wrist.
"You made two mistakes tonight, Viktor," I said, my voice calm, flat, and chillingly devoid of emotion.
Viktor grinned, taking a step closer to assert his size.
"Only two?"
"I thought I made dozens."
"Your first mistake," I continued, "was assuming that because I do not operate in the mud anymore, I have forgotten how to bury things in it."
"And your second mistake?" Viktor laughed, raising the bat off his shoulder.
"Your second mistake was touching Emma Carter."
Viktor’s grin widened into a sneer of pure contempt.
"She was a little mouse," he spat, gesturing with the bat.
"She cried and begged like a dog in the alley."
"She told me you were going to protect her."
"I hit her until she stopped talking because I wanted to show Kolov that Castellano’s crest isn't worth the thread it's sewn with."
"So what are you going to do about it, billionaire?"
"Shoot me?"
"Kolov will burn your shipping yards to the ground by sunrise."
"I am not going to shoot you, Viktor," I whispered.
I took my right hand out of my pocket.
In it was a small, ornate silver lighter engraved with my family's crest.
I flicked the wheel.
A steady blue flame danced in the cold draft.
"Marco," I said softly.
"Break his knees."
Viktor swung the aluminum bat with all his strength toward my temple.
He was fast, but Marco was already inside his guard.
Marco stepped under the arc of the bat, drove the heel of his palm directly into Viktor’s throat to collapse his windpipe, and swept his trailing leg.
Viktor crashed onto the concrete like a felled oak.
Before the giant could roll over, Marco brought his heavy combat boot down onto Viktor’s right kneecap.
The sound of bone shattering echoed through the cavernous warehouse like a gunshot.
Viktor unleashed an ear-splitting howl of agony that rattled the metal roof above.
Around the room, thirty armed men drew their pistols.
And then, the high-pressure steel shutters on every window of the warehouse blew inward with an explosive roar.
Red laser dots from eight tactical sniper rifles appeared simultaneously on the chests and foreheads of every single man standing on that floor.
From the catwalks above, six men in full black tactical gear stepped forward, their submachine guns aimed down with merciless precision.
"Drop the iron," a voice boomed from the rafters through a tactical megaphone.
"Now."
One by one, the sound of pistols clattering against the concrete filled the silence.
Viktor lay on the floor, clawing at his shattered knee, his face purple from lack of air, sobbing in the dirt.
I walked over and crouched beside his head.
I held the burning lighter two inches from his wide, terrified eyes.
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"You think New York belongs to Dmitri Kolov?" I whispered.
"Let's see what Kolov pays to buy you back."
