Chapter 28 - The fall of the serpent
The shrieking groan of snapping steel cables was the only warning.
"Look out!" Elena screamed, diving backward toward the concrete apron just as six tons of solid iron smashed down like the hammer of God.
The counterweight hit the wooden decking between Richard and Arthur with cataclysmic force. The pier timbers exploded upward in a volcano of jagged splinters, iron bolts, and foam. The shockwave tore the dock apart, collapsing the entire twenty-foot section of walkway into the surging black waters of the bay.
Arthur was thrown violently off balance by the concussion, his foot catching in the splintering planks. His grip on Noah loosened as he fell backward toward the edge of the collapsing pier.
"Grandpa!" Noah shrieked as he was flung toward the churning, icy black water below.
Richard moved faster than his sixty-year-old, battered body had ever moved in his life. He launched himself across the gap of splintering wood, ignoring the steel rebar tearing through his thigh, and caught Noah’s small, cold wrist just inches above the foaming surface of the ocean.
"I got you! I got you, Noah!" Richard roared, his fingers locking around the boy's wrist like vice grips.
The weight of the child pulled Richard down against the jagged edge of the broken dock, the sharp timber driving deep into his cracked ribs. Below him, the icy Atlantic waves roared, hungry for their lives.
Behind him, Arthur scrambled up from the wreckage, his face bloody, his eyes wild with demonic fury. He raised the gold revolver with both hands, aiming directly at Richard’s exposed back.
"Die with the brat, Richard!" Arthur screamed over the howling storm.
*BANG.*
A shot rang out across the pier, loud and sharp above the sound of the waves.
Arthur’s body jolted. His eyes widened in utter disbelief as a small, neat hole appeared in the center of his silk tie. He looked down at his chest, then slowly turned his head toward the entrance of the warehouse.
Standing twenty yards away in the pouring rain, leaning heavily against the battered frame of the snowplow truck, was Viktor. His face was swollen and purple, his left arm hung uselessly at his side, but his right hand held a massive .50-caliber Desert Eagle steady as stone.
"For the Bellacorte family, you miserable son of a bitch," Viktor rasped through broken teeth.
May you like
Viktor squeezed the trigger two more times.
Two massive hollow-point rounds tore through Arthur’s chest, lifting the billionaire exile off his feet and throwing his body backward into the dark, freezing waters of the bay. A single red stain bloomed on the whitecaps before the tide swallowed him whole.
