Chapter 5 - Shadows and SmokeThe night air turned into a roaring inferno of muzzle flashes, flying concrete chips, and the stinging smell of cordite.
"Get down!" Frankie yelled, shoving me hard behind the reinforced steel corner of an abandoned railcar while returning fire with a suppressed submachine gun.
Bullets chewed through the rotting wood of the pallets beside us, sending splinters raining down over my shoulders. I didn't flinch. In the absolute darkness of my mind, the gunfire mapped out the courtyard with startling clarity. I could hear where every enemy was standing based on the distinct acoustic signature of their weapons—the high-pitched crack of an AK-74 versus the deeper thud of a Glock.
"Frankie, how many?" I shouted over the din.
"Six total! Two down, four moving flanking left!" Frankie yelled back, reloading his weapon with a practiced, fluid snap.
"Give me your backup piece," I ordered, holding out my left hand.
"Boss, you can't—"
"Give it to me, Frankie!"
Cursing under his breath, Frankie thrust a compact SIG Sauer into my palm.
I closed my eyes—though it made no difference—and stepped out from behind the railcar, exposing myself to the crossfire.
A burst of automatic fire chipped the concrete inches from my boot. I tracked the sound, raised both weapons, and pulled the triggers in rapid succession.
Bang-bang. Bang-bang.
Two distinct thuds echoed across the courtyard as two of Petrov’s mercenaries dropped their weapons and hit the dirt, neutralized by precise, center-mass shots fired by a blind man who knew every angle of the death he was dealing.
"Jesus Christ," Frankie breathed from behind cover.
The remaining two mercenaries lost their nerve. In the span of thirty seconds, their leader was bleeding out on the concrete, and their elite backup had been picked off by a ghost. Dropping their assault rifles, they threw their hands in the air and bolted toward the perimeter fence.
"Let them run," I commanded, lowering the smoking barrels of the pistols. "They'll carry the message back to whatever hole they crawled out of."
Silence descended upon the rail yard, broken only by the crackle of a small fire sparked by a stray bullet and the groans of the wounded Viktor Petrov clutching his chest in the dirt.
I walked forward slowly, my boots clicking rhythmically against the concrete, guided entirely by the sound of Petrov's ragged breathing. I stopped right beside him, looking down into the darkness where he lay.
"Ethan..." Petrov wheezed, blood bubbling from his lips. "You're... you're a demon."
"No, Viktor," I said coldly, crouching down until my face was inches from his. "I'm just a man who takes care of his business."
"The... the traitor..." Petrov choked out, his eyes glazing over. "You think... you think you know who sold you out... to the Feds... on the night of the ambush..."
My heart skipped a beat. I grabbed the collar of his leather jacket, hauling his heavy upper body off the concrete. "Who? Tell me right now, Viktor, or I’ll make your death take an hour."
Petrov let out a wet, gruesome chuckle. "It wasn't... it wasn't Dominic. It wasn't... Marcone..."
His head suddenly lolled backward. His eyes rolled up into his skull, and his body went entirely limp in my grip.
Dead.
"Viktor! Damn it!" I snarled, dropping his corpse back onto the concrete with a heavy thud.
Dominic and Frankie rushed up behind me, panting, their weapons still raised.
"Boss, are you hit?" Dominic asked, his voice shaking.
May you like
"I'm fine," I snapped, standing up straight and wiping a smudge of soot from my cheek. I looked down at the recessed steel vault in the foundation wall, which Petrov's men had nearly beaten open with the sledgehammer.
"Finish the job," I ordered. "Break that lock open. I want to see what's inside."
