Chapter 5 - A Father’s First Midnight and the Sins of the Past
The sound of gunfire echoing through the private corridor of my own penthouse tore through my chest like white-hot shrapnel.
"Victor, fall back to the safe room door!" I roared into my radio, sprinting out of the boardroom without looking back. "Dante, Christian, lock down the building's main power grid! Silas, with me!"
Despite the beating I had just given him, Silas didn't hesitate. He drew two customized Glock 19s from his shoulder holsters, his eyes burning with the old street-born loyalty that had kept us alive for twenty years. We moved down the eastern corridor like a pair of coordinated reapers.
The scent of cordite and burned gunsmoke filled the air. Two of my personal guards lay motionless on the marble floor near the master suite entrance, their tactical vests shredded by close-range shotgun blasts. Standing before the reinforced steel door were three mercenaries clad in unmarked black assault gear, setting a shaped thermite charge directly over the electronic locking mechanism.
"CLEAR!" I bellowed.
Silas and I opened fire simultaneously.
The corridor erupted into a deafening symphony of gunfire. The Kimber in my hand kicked rhythmically, each .45-caliber round finding its mark. The first mercenary took two rounds to the center of mass and dropped like a stone. The second swung his carbine toward us, but Silas put three rounds through his visor before he could pull the trigger.
The third mercenary dropped his weapon, lunging for the detonator wire on the door, but I closed the distance in three long strides, grabbing him by the tactical vest and slamming him spine-first into the wall.
I shoved the smoking barrel of my Kimber directly under his jaw.
"Who sent you?" I snarled.
The mercenary gurgled, blood foaming at the corners of his mouth. "The... the Viper... already has the boy..."
Before I could process the words, the heavy reinforced door of the master suite clicked and swung open from the inside.
Standing in the doorway was Tavlin.
She wasn't weeping. She wasn't cowering.
In her right hand, she held the compact Glock I had given her, the slide locked back—empty. At her feet lay a fourth operative, completely incapacitated with two bullet holes through his collarbone and a fractured jaw from a heavy ceramic vase lying shattered beside him.
Behind her, hidden securely inside the walk-in cedar closet beneath a mountain of heavy blankets, Lennox was crying softly, but he was untouched.
Tavlin looked at me through the haze of gunsmoke, her knuckles white, her chest heaving. "You told me to shoot anyone who came through that door, Mercer. He had a master keycard."
My breath hitched. I dropped the mercenary I was holding, stepping over the bodies, and cupped Tavlin's face with both hands. I inspected every inch of her—no blood, no wounds, only the fierce, terrifying adrenaline of a mother who had just defended her child with lethal precision.
"You're safe," I breathed, pulling her forehead against my chest. "You're safe."
For a single second, Tavlin let herself lean into me, her trembling hands clutching the lapels of my coat. But then the reality of the carnage around us returned, and she pushed back, her gray eyes flashing with fierce resolve.
"He called her Elena on his radio before I took him down," Tavlin said, pointing at the operative on the floor. "She’s not trying to kill Lennox, Mercer. She wants to abduct him to force you to sign over the East Coast distribution rights to the syndicates in Boston."
"She won't get within a mile of him," I swore.
Silas stepped into the doorway, holstering his smoking pistols. He looked at Tavlin, then down at the unconscious hitman at her feet. A slow, respectful nod came from my second-in-command. "Remind me never to get on your bad side, Miss Mitchell."
Tavlin didn't smile. "Where is she, Silas?"
"She’s heading for the docks," Silas replied grimly. "She has a private yacht waiting at Pier 42. If she clears the harbor, she connects with the Boston families, and this turns into a full-scale interstate war."
I turned back to the cedar closet. Lennox had crawled out from under the blankets, his big gray eyes wide as he looked at the chaos. When he saw me, the tears stopped. He reached out with both hands, his little voice cutting through the smell of blood and smoke.
"Dada," he whispered.
May you like
I walked over, knelt down, and lifted him gently into my arms. This time, I didn't care about the blood on my hands or the storm raging outside. I held my son tight against my heart, kissing the soft curls on top of his head.
"Victor," I commanded over the radio. "Prep the armored convoy. We aren't waiting for Elena to reach the ocean. We take the war to Pier 42."
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