Chapter 4 - A Sovereign Fallen
The collision echoed across the East River like artillery fire.
Two of Vieri’s chase vehicles slammed into Gabriel’s Mercedes simultaneously. The reinforced armor and heavy steel frame held, but the violence of the crash deployed the side airbags, filling the cabin with white powder and the acrid smell of burnt propellant.
Gabriel kicked his door open with both feet, forcing the crumpled metal outward. Rain immediately soaked his bespoke charcoal suit, plastering his white shirt to his chest. Blood trickled down his temple from where his head had struck the pillar, but he didn't feel it. Adrenaline flooded his veins, cold and venomous.
Four men climbed out of the wrecked pursuit cars, weapons drawn.
""Gabriel!"" one of them shouted, raising a semi-automatic handgun. It was Dino Rossi, Sebastian Vieri’s trusted enforcer. ""Back off! This isn't your call anymore! Caruso authorized the scrub! The board ratified it!""
Gabriel walked toward them through the rain, his hands empty, his stride measured and terrifyingly unhurried.
""Caruso is unemployed,"" Gabriel said, his voice carrying over the roar of the river. ""And you are standing on my road.""
""You don't own the city anymore, Russo!"" Dino spat, though his hand trembled slightly as Gabriel closed the distance between them. ""Sebastian has the governor's signature! You're just a name on a corporate letterhead!""
""Then shoot me,"" Gabriel said softly, stopping five feet from the barrel of the gun. He didn't blink. ""Pull the trigger, Dino. Show Sebastian what happens when you kill a Russo on the FDR. See if your family survives the weekend.""
Dino hesitated for half a second—and half a second was all Gabriel needed.
Gabriel stepped inside the weapon’s line of fire, his left hand slapping the barrel downward while his right elbow drove upward into Dino's throat with bone-crushing precision. The man collapsed into the water-filled gutter, gasping for air. Gabriel swept the fallen weapon off the pavement, turned, and fired three rounds into the engine blocks of the remaining pursuit vehicles, disabling their radiators in a hiss of boiling steam.
Tires screeched behind him as three black sedans marked with the discreet crest of Russo Holdings skidded to a halt. Leo Vance leaped out, flanked by six armed security operatives in tactical gear.
""Secure the perimeter!"" Leo barked. ""Disarm them! Get the medics!""
""Leave them,"" Gabriel ordered, wiping blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. His chest heaved, his eyes scanning the empty stretch of highway where Rachel’s Audi had disappeared into the darkness toward lower Manhattan.
""Boss, you're bleeding,"" Leo said, stepping toward him with a trauma kit. ""We need to get you to the private clinic in Midtown.""
""Where did she go?"" Gabriel demanded, ignoring the cut on his head. ""Leo, where is the Audi?""
""My team tracked them off the Brooklyn Bridge exit,"" Leo replied, checking his tablet. ""Ms. Sloan took her straight to New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan. Natalie was experiencing contractions on the highway, Gabriel. The stress... the crash. She's in labor.""
The world seemed to stop spinning. The billion-dollar contracts, the broken glass, the armed men on the pavement, the blood dripping into his eyes—everything vanished, stripped away until only one terrifying reality remained.
Twenty-eight weeks.
His daughter wasn't supposed to arrive for another three months.
Gabriel tossed the confiscated firearm onto the hood of the ruined Mercedes. ""Call the hospital. Put every private doctor on our retainer on that floor right now. If a single person associated with Vieri, Caruso, or the Kingsbridge board steps foot inside that building, put them in the ground.""
""And you, Gabriel?"" Leo asked quietly. ""What do you want us to tell her if she asks about you?""
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Gabriel looked down at his ruined hands, bruised and stained with road grime and blood. He remembered the weight of her wedding ring resting on his kitchen counter, next to the contract that had cost him everything that mattered.
""Tell her,"" Gabriel said, his voice barely audible above the storm, ""that I am finishing what she started.""
