Chapter 18 - The Ambush at the Hudson
"Now!" Dominic roared into his radio.
The falling container plummeted twenty feet before violently jerking to an abrupt, screeching halt in midair.
Vincenzo’s underwater team had successfully locked the secondary high-tensile steel cables onto the crane frame, arresting the fall just fifteen feet above the concrete floor.
The metal groaned under the sudden tension, swinging precariously like a massive pendulum.
Marcus’s eyes bugged out in sheer disbelief. "What the hell—!"
Before Marcus could recover from the shock, Dominic reached inside his heavy wool coat and detonated a high-intensity flashbang grenade, hurling it directly toward the center catwalk.
A blinding white eruption and a concussive boom shattered the air, plunging the warehouse into temporary sensory overload.
Gunfire erupted instantly from every corner.
Dominic drew his assault rifle from beneath his coat, opening fire on the mercenaries descending the stairs.
Two men collapsed instantly, their armor shredded by armor-piercing rounds.
"Cover the crane!" I shouted, dropping behind a stack of industrial crates and raising my suppressed pistol.
A mercenary on the lower gantry aimed his rifle at the secondary cables, intending to sever the steel lines with automatic fire.
I squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession.
Two rounds caught him in the shoulder and neck, spinning him off the catwalk into the darkness below.
"Clara, get to the container!" Dominic barked, firing short, disciplined bursts that kept the upper snipers pinned behind the steel pillars.
"I’m going!" I yelled back.
I sprinted across the open concrete floor, dodging a spray of bullets that sparked furiously against the floor at my heels.
The blue shipping container was suspended ten feet above the ground, swinging gently back and forth.
Near the base was an emergency manual release ladder hanging from the crane chassis.
I leaped, catching the cold metal rung with both hands, the strain pulling sharply against the bullet scars on my shoulder.
A grunt of pain escaped my lips, but I refused to let go.
I pulled myself up onto the narrow ledge of the container, reaching for the heavy industrial latch securing the double steel doors.
"Mom! Can you hear me?" I screamed over the deafening cacophony of gunfire below.
"Clara! Clara, my baby!" my mother’s terrified voice cried out from within the darkness of the metal box.
I grabbed a metal pry bar strapped to the crane platform and jammed it into the padlocked latch, putting the entire weight of my body behind the lever.
With a sickening metallic crack, the rusted lock snapped.
I threw the heavy doors open.
Inside, curled against a wooden crate, was my mother, her face pale, bruised, and streaked with tears, but alive.
"Come on, Mom! Take my hand!" I shouted, reaching into the container.
Before she could grab my fingers, a high-caliber bullet tore through the metal door just inches above my head.
I ducked instinctively as Marcus Leone appeared on the maintenance catwalk directly across from the container, holding an assault rifle with wild, deranged eyes.
"You think you won, you little street rat?" Marcus screamed over the noise of the battle.
He raised the rifle, aiming directly at my chest.
I had no cover.
The Glock in my hand was empty, the slide locked back.
Time slowed to an agonizing crawl.
The seven scars on my flesh seemed to pulse with heat, warning me that the eighth bullet was about to find its mark.
Suddenly, a towering figure leaped across the gap between the industrial crates and the crane platform.
Dominic collided with Marcus midair, tackling the syndicate heir violently against the steel railing of the catwalk.
The assault rifle clattered over the edge, tumbling into the dark waters of the harbor below.
Marcus snarled, pulling a serrated combat knife from his boot and slashing upward toward Dominic’s throat.
Dominic leaned back, the blade slicing a shallow crimson line across his cheekbone, but his counter-strike was immediate and devastating.
Dominic caught Marcus’s wrist with his left hand, twisting it until the bone snapped with a sickening pop.
The knife dropped to the steel grating.
Dominic drove his right fist into Marcus’s jaw once, twice, three times, beating the man into a bloody, incoherent pulp against the railing.
"You threatened my wife," Dominic growled, his voice a low, demonic whisper that chilled the room.
"You touched her family."
"Dominic... please..." Marcus wheezed, spitting teeth and blood, his hands clawing weakly at Dominic’s tailored lapels.
"Begging is for humans, Marcus," Dominic said coldly.
Dominic lifted Marcus by his throat, effortlessly hoisting the broken heir over the edge of the high railing.
"The Rossi family does not grant mercy to rats."
Dominic let go.
Marcus Leone shrieked as he plummeted forty feet through the shadows, crashing with a wet, brutal thud onto the concrete basin below.
Silence descended upon Warehouse B like a heavy suffocating blanket.
The surviving mercenaries had fled into the night or lay dead among the debris.
Dominic stood on the high catwalk, his chest heaving, his face splattered with blood, his dark eyes looking down at the broken body of his enemy.
Then, his gaze lifted across the open expanse and found mine.
May you like
I stood on the ledge of the container, holding my trembling mother securely in my arms.
Under the flickering warehouse lights, the king of New York and his scarred queen locked eyes across the smoking ruins of their battlefield.
