Chapter 6 - Blood on the Mahogany Desk
The muzzle flash did not illuminate the room with light,
it cut through the suffocating dark like a streak of lightning tearing across an open grave.
The mercenary to Marcus’s left raised an automatic rifle,
his finger tightening on the curved steel trigger,
but his reflexes were half a heartbeat slower than my twenty years of survival.
I pulled the trigger of the suppressed submachine gun,
feeling the sharp,
familiar recoil shudder through the bones of my wrists.
Three rounds tore through the mercenary’s throat and collarbone,
shattering the ceramic trauma plate beneath his tactical vest,
flinging his body backward against the antique grandfather clock that had ticked in this hallway since eighteen-ninety.
Glass shattered,
chimes screamed,
and the man hit the parquet floor with a heavy,
limp thud.
"Kill him!"
Marcus shrieked,
his suave arrogance evaporating into the frantic,
high-pitched howl of a cornered coward.
He did not fire his silver-plated Colt,
he did not stand his ground like the soldier he claimed to be,
he scrambled backward into the arched doorway,
using his remaining two gunmen as a human wall against the storm.
The study erupted into deafening thunder.
The second mercenary opened fire on full automatic,
heavy caliber rounds chewing through the six-hundred-year-old oak trim,
pulverizing the leather-bound volumes of law and philosophy into swirling clouds of shredded paper and bitter dust.
I threw my weight sideways,
slamming my shoulder into the corner of my father’s mahogany desk,
heaving the massive four-hundred-pound timber onto its side.
The desk crashed down onto the Persian rug like a barricade,
dense ironwood taking the brunt of the incoming barrage.
Splinters the size of iron needles exploded into my cheek,
cutting deep into the skin,
warm blood trickling down into the collar of my torn shirt.
Behind the overturned wood,
I counted the shots in the dark.
Twelve,
sixteen,
twenty,
twenty-four.
The unmistakable click of an empty bolt locking back echoed over the roaring rain outside.
I did not give him time to clear the magwell.
I vaulted over the overturned mahogany,
clearing the barrier like a black hawk dropping from the rafters,
and drove the butt of my weapon straight into the shooter’s jaw.
The impact broke his cheekbone with a wet,
muffled crunch.
He stumbled into the wall,
dropping his empty rifle,
reaching with frantic fingers for the combat blade strapped to his tactical thigh rig.
I seized his wrist,
twisted the joint until the tendons tore like dry twine,
and drove the barrel of my weapon directly under his chin.
One trigger pull ended his struggle forever.
The third mercenary dropped to one knee in the corridor,
aiming a short-barreled shotgun directly at my exposed ribs.
Before his finger could complete the squeeze,
I hurled the dead gunman’s body directly into his line of sight.
The shotgun roared,
pellets shredding his own comrade’s Kevlar vest,
and in that single split second of blinding confusion,
I closed the distance.
I drew my Kimber forty-five from my waistband with my left hand,
pressing the muzzle flat against the mercenary’s temple,
and squeezed.
The hammer dropped with cold,
mathematical finality.
The man collapsed,
leaving only the stench of gunpowder,
ozone,
and fresh blood filling the narrow corridor of the third floor.
I lowered the weapon,
breathing heavily through my teeth,
wiping the warm smear of blood from my forehead with the back of my hand.
Down the gallery,
disappearing into the shadows of the secondary staircase leading toward the ballroom,
I heard the rapid,
scrambling footsteps of Marcus Vance.
"You can't save them,
Roman!"
Marcus screamed from the darkness below,
his voice echoing up the marble well like a lunatic’s laugh in an abandoned church.
"The whole city knows what Silas did!
You think the Russian syndicate will let a six-year-old bastard take the docks?
She dies tonight,
Roman,
or you burn with her!"
I reloaded the Kimber,
slapping the base of the magazine home until the steel locked tight.
"You won't make it to the gates,
Marcus,"
I whispered to the empty air,
May you like
stepping deliberately over the bodies,
following the trail of mud and spilled brass down into the deep core of the mansion.
