Chapter 5 - The Glass FortressThe Grand Royale Hotel on South Michigan Avenue was an imposing thirty-story structure of marble and dark glass. The top two floors served as Dante Salvatore’s private fortress—a labyrinth of luxury suites, private gambling dens, and heavily guarded executive offices.
At 2:30 a.m., the power to the entire building suddenly cut out.
The towering glass structure was plunged into total darkness, save for the emergency red backup lights that flickered to life along the hallways.
Inside the thirty-first-floor executive suite, Dante Salvatore stood up from his desk, his hand instantly going to the silver-plated revolver resting in his drawer.
"What happened to the generator?" Dante demanded into his radio handset. "Marco! Report!"
Static was the only response.
"Marco, answer me!"
Bzzt... The radio crackled. A voice came through—not Marco’s, but a cold, deep voice that sent a chill straight down Dante’s spine.
"Marco is feeding the crows in the ravine, Dante," Nathaniel’s voice echoed through the speaker. "And I am in your elevator."
Dante slammed the radio onto the desk. "All teams to the executive lobby! Now! Kill anything that moves!"
In the dark hallway outside the suite, six of Dante’s best hitmen took positions behind marble pillars, their assault rifles trained on the heavy steel doors of the service elevator.
The red indicator light above the elevator doors flickered. 30... 31.
DING.
The heavy steel doors slid open.
The hitmen opened fire instantly, a deafening storm of lead tearing into the interior of the elevator cab, shattering the mirrors and shredding the carpet.
When the firing stopped and the smoke cleared, the men froze in confusion.
The elevator was empty.
Suddenly, the glass skylight directly above the hallway shattered into ten thousand falling shards.
Two heavy smoke canisters dropped into the corridor, exploding into thick, blinding clouds of tear gas. Before the gunmen could raise their weapons, dark figures dropped from the ceiling rafters like shadows.
It was not an attack; it was a slaughter. Nathaniel’s elite strike team, equipped with night-vision optics and silenced weapons, moved through the smoke with surgical precision.
Through the chaos raced a black phantom. Titan, unburdened by the tear gas, slammed into the lead shooter, dragging him to the floor before he could clear his sights.
Nathaniel walked through the heavy smoke, a pair of night-vision goggles resting atop his head, firing with terrifying, rhythmic precision. Three shots. Three bodies hitting the marble floor.
In less than ninety seconds, the thirty-first floor was silent once more.
Nathaniel kicked open the heavy double doors of Dante’s private office.
Dante was standing near the floor-to-ceiling glass window overlooking the snow-covered city. In his left arm, he held Clara’s sister, Sarah, her face bruised and weeping, a heavy silver revolver pressed tightly against her temple.
"Stay back, Cross!" Dante screamed, his eyes wild with desperation. "I'll blow her brains all over this glass! I swear to God I'll do it!"
Nathaniel stopped ten feet away. He slowly lowered his weapon to his side.
Behind him, Titan trotted silently into the room, his paws leaving dark, bloody imprints on the white marble floor. The massive dog stopped beside Nathaniel, his ears pinned back, a low, guttural growl vibrating in his chest.
"You lost, Dante," Nathaniel said quietly. "Your men are dead. Your empire is seized. Federal agents are currently raiding your docks in Gary as we speak."
"I haven't lost as long as I have this!" Dante shrieked, pressing the barrel harder into Sarah’s head. "Drop your gun, Cross! Drop it or she dies!"
Nathaniel didn't drop his gun. Instead, he did something that made Dante’s blood turn to ice.
He smiled.
"You never understood why I survived all those years, Dante," Nathaniel said softly. "You thought I was powerful because I was ruthless. But power isn't about how many men you can kill."
Nathaniel turned his eyes slightly toward the corner of the ceiling.
"It's about knowing who controls the lights."
FLASH.
A high-intensity flashbang grenade, deployed from a tactical drone outside the window, detonated directly against the exterior glass.
The blinding white light and deafening explosion blew the floor-to-ceiling window inward, showering the room in a mountain of glass shards. Dante let out a agonized scream, instantly blinded, his grip on Sarah slipping as he clutched his bleeding eyes.
In that split second, Titan sprang.
The massive dog crossed the room in a single leap, his jaws locking around Dante’s gun arm, taking the mob boss down to the marble floor with crushing force. The silver revolver clattered uselessly across the room.
Nathaniel stepped forward, grabbed Sarah by her arm, and pulled her safely behind him, wrapping his coat around her shivering shoulders.
Dante lay on the floor, pinned beneath Titan’s crushing weight, sobbing in agony as the dog held him fast.
Nathaniel stood over his old enemy, looking down at him with cold detachment.
"Please..." Dante begged, his voice cracking. "Please, Nathaniel... don't kill me... I'll leave the city... I'll give you everything..."
Nathaniel looked at Titan. "Release."
May you like
Titan instantly opened his jaws and stepped back, standing at absolute attention beside his master.
"I'm not going to kill you, Dante," Nathaniel said, stepping back as the sirens of dozens of federal law enforcement vehicles echoed from the street thirty floors below. "Death is too clean. You’re going to spend the rest of your life in a supermax facility in Florence, Colorado. And every single day, you’re going to remember that you were brought down by a mother, a toddler, and a dog you thought was broken."
