Chapter 3 - The Russian RouletteThe roar of the explosion echoed inside Sienna’s skull, blinding her with thick gray smoke and ringing dust. She coughed violently, struggling to breathe as rubble pinned her leg to the concrete floor.
Through the haze, she saw Dawson already on his feet, his gun raised, shielding her body with his own as heavy gunfire shattered the doorway.
"Tracer rounds!" Dawson shouted over the deafening noise, firing three controlled shots into the smoke. "Sienna, stay down!"
A harsh, foreign voice echoed from the hallway. "Clear the room! Don't kill the boy, but bring me the girl's head!"
It wasn't Vittorio’s men. It was Viktor Volkov’s private Russian mercenary squad.
Volkov had realized that Dawson wouldn't let Sienna die quietly. Instead of waiting for Vittorio’s slow investigation, Viktor had launched an internal coup, striking at the heart of the Moretti Tower while the family was divided.
A mercenary stepped through the shattered doorway, raising an AK-47. Dawson ducked beneath the barrel, drove his combat knife upward into the man’s tactical vest, grabbed his rifle, and spun him around as a human shield as two more mercenaries opened fire.
"Get up, Sienna! Now!" Dawson barked, extending a hand to her.
Sienna gritted her teeth, shoving a heavy piece of concrete off her ankle. Pain shot up her leg, but adrenaline washed it away. She grabbed Dawson’s hand, and he hauled her up, pulling her behind a heavy steel support pillar just as a hail of bullets pulverized the wall where she had been lying.
"Can you walk?" Dawson asked, checking his magazine.
"I can run if I have to," she panted, her face covered in drywall dust.
"Good. Because the stairs are compromised. We're going through the maintenance tunnels."
Dawson fired a burst of suppressive fire into the hallway, grabbed Sienna by the waist, and dragged her toward the open air vent he had used to enter. He hoisted her up first, scrambling in right behind her as bullets tore through the room below.
They crawled through the cramped, dust-filled metal shaft as the sounds of a full-scale firefight erupted throughout the basement level. Shouting in Russian, exploding grenades, and the deep, rhythmic thud of heavy weaponry shook the building structure. Viktor wasn't just taking out Sienna; he was wiping out Vittorio’s loyalists and seizing control of the Moretti syndicate by force.
"Where does this vent go?" Sienna whispered, her lungs burning as she crawled on her hands and knees.
"It leads to the sub-basement boiler room," Dawson said right behind her. "From there, we can hit the freight elevator to the underground parking garage. My driver, Marcus, is waiting with the armored SUV."
They reached a vertical junction. Dawson reached past her, kicked the lower grate out, and dropped down onto a concrete platform, catching Sienna as she slid down after him.
They were in the subterranean boiler room—a dark, humid labyrinth of red pipes, hissing steam, and heavy machinery.
"Not so fast, little nephew."
A cold voice echoed through the steam.
Dawson froze, pushing Sienna behind him.
Stepping out from behind a massive furnace was Viktor Volkov, flanked by four heavily armed mercenaries wearing night-vision goggles. Viktor was holding a silver-plated revolver, a cruel, triumphant smile stretching across his scarred face.
"Viktor," Dawson said calmly, his gun raised, though he was heavily outnumbered. "You're making a mistake. My father’s men will tear you apart."
"Your father is dead, Dawson," Viktor lied casually, taking a slow step forward. "He had a sudden... breathing complication... in his office ten minutes ago. Sad, really. The old wolf was getting weak. Selling out to me was his last intelligent move, but he thought he could control me. He thought he could keep you safe while giving me his ports."
Dawson’s face went deadly pale. "You killed my father?"
"He killed himself the moment he trusted a Russian," Viktor sneered. "And now, I clean up the remaining trash. Drop the weapon, Dawson, or I let my men shoot Miss Brooks in the knees before we throw her in the furnace."
Sienna felt Dawson’s body go rigid beside her. She knew him. She knew the explosive, murderous rage that was building inside him—the same rage that had almost destroyed the Onyx Lounge six weeks ago. If he lost control now, they would both be executed in this room.
She reached out, her fingers digging firmly into Dawson’s wrist, forcing him to ground himself.
"Dawson, look at me," Sienna whispered, her voice steady despite the guns pointed at them. "Don't give him what he wants."
Dawson blinked, meeting her gaze through the gloom. The wild, unhinged fire in his eyes slowly receded, replaced by a cold, calculating brilliance.
"You want the flash drive, Viktor?" Dawson asked softly, holding up the small silver drive between two fingers. "You want the offshore account codes and the names of every corrupt federal judge my family has bought over thirty years?"
Viktor’s eyes glinted with greed. "Hand it over, and I might let you leave the city alive."
"Catch," Dawson said.
Instead of tossing it to Viktor, Dawson threw the drive high into the air, straight toward a high-pressure steam valve directly above Viktor’s head.
Instinctively, Viktor and his four mercenaries raised their eyes, tracking the shiny object in the air.
In that fraction of a second, Dawson pulled his secondary pistol from his ankle holster, aimed upward, and pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
The bullet ruptured the high-pressure steam line. A blinding, roaring cloud of superheated, 300-degree steam exploded outward, instantly engulfing Viktor and his mercenaries.
Screams of agony filled the boiler room as the mercenaries dropped their weapons, blinded and burned by the white wall of steam.
"Run!" Dawson roared.
He grabbed Sienna’s hand, sprinting through the dense fog toward the heavy emergency exit door at the far end of the room. He slammed his weight against the push-bar, shoving her out into the cold night air of the service alley behind Moretti Tower.
Rain was pouring down in sheets, washing the sweat and dust from their faces.
A heavy black SUV peeled into the alley, its tires screeching as it slid to a stop beside them. The back door flew open.
"Get in! Get in!" yelled Marcus, Dawson’s most loyal bodyguard, a massive man with a bloody bandage wrapped around his head.
Dawson shoved Sienna into the leather backseat, climbing in right behind her as Marcus slammed the door and floored the accelerator. The SUV burst out of the alley onto Wacker Drive just as a hail of gunfire from the building’s upper windows shattered the rear glass.
Sienna collapsed against the leather seats, gasping for air, her heart pounding like a jackhammer. Dawson pulled her close, wrapping a heavy wool blanket around her shivering shoulders.
"Where to, Boss?" Marcus yelled from the front seat, navigating the rain-slicked streets at eighty miles an hour.
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Dawson looked down at Sienna, then at the city skyline disappearing into the stormy night behind them.
"Federal Plaza," Dawson commanded, his voice cold as steel. "We’re burning it all down tonight."
