Chapter 10 - The Sovereign's Vow
I walked down to the subterranean armory beneath the estate, my boots echoing against the concrete floor like the strikes of a hammer.
Chloe followed me step for step, refusing to stay behind. When I unlocked the heavy steel vault doors, rows of tactical gear, silenced submachine guns, and custom-forged blades gleamed under the harsh fluorescent strips.
"You don't belong down here, Chloe," I said, opening a wall-mounted locker and sliding a tactical vest over my shoulders.
"My brother died in the Queens turf wars because men like Nicholas thought they could step on anyone without a last name," Chloe said, her voice steady and hard, completely stripping away the shy demeanor she had worn since arriving at the estate. "I didn't come to your house to be a maid, Mr. Russo. I came because I knew you were the only man in New York with the power to tear down the people who killed my family too."
I paused, looking at her over my shoulder. The fear in her eyes was gone, replaced by the exact same cold, burning fire that had driven me through fourteen months of darkness.
My phone buzzed violently on the metal workbench.
An encrypted text message from an unknown burner number. It displayed a single photograph taken from a traffic camera on the bridge leading out of Long Island: Nicholas’s sports car parked outside an abandoned shipping warehouse down by the Brooklyn docks, accompanied by a GPS coordinate.
He thinks he can burn my empire down and walk away, I thought, pulling the slide back on my Sig Sauer with a sharp, metallic clack.
May you like
I pocketed the phone, secured my weapons, and turned toward the elevator that led up to the garage.
"Vince, mobilize the heavy unit," I spoke into my comms unit, the sound of my voice carrying the absolute finality of a death sentence. "We're going to Brooklyn. And this time, nobody leaves alive."
