Chapter 9 - The Broken Velvet
I hit the pavement running.
There was no hesitation in my stride. The phantom pain in my lower spine vanished under an overwhelming surge of pure, murderous rage. The polished cherry-wood cane became a blunt instrument in my right hand as I closed the fifty-yard distance to the velvet rope in less than ten seconds.
The two towering bouncers outside the entrance barely had time to register my approach.
"Hey, private club, buddy—" the first one began, stepping forward with his arm outstretched.
I didn't stop to argue. I hooked the curved crook of my cane behind his right knee, ripping his leg out from under him while driving my left palm into his nose with shattering force. He collapsed onto the wet sidewalk with a strangled cry. The second bouncer reached for his jacket, but Sal appeared directly behind him, slamming a heavy steel flashlight across his temple, dropping him like a sack of wet sand.
I kicked the heavy double glass doors inward with the heel of my boot.
The music was deafening, the air thick with artificial smoke and expensive cologne. Patrons screamed as I charged through the dance floor like a phantom out of Chicago’s darkest era. Waitresses dropped trays of crystal flutes, and dancers scrambled away from the sheer, lethal malice radiating from my frame.
I cleared the mezzanine staircase taking three steps at a time.
At the top of the landing, Enzo—the shooter with the spider tattoo—was already drawing a nickel-plated automatic from his leather holster. He raised the barrel toward my chest.
I closed the distance before he could line up the sight. I drove the heavy steel tip of my cane directly into the center of his solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs in a ragged gasp, then pivoted on my healed left leg and drove an elbow across his jaw. The shooter hit the mirrored wall, cracking the glass into a thousand spiderwebs, before slumping unconscious onto the plush red carpet.
I turned the corner into the VIP lounge.
Carmine was standing beside the private booth, his left hand twisted into Faith’s hair, forcing her head back while pressing the cold barrel of a snub-nosed revolver against the soft skin of her jaw. Faith’s eyes were wide with pain and fury, her lip split and bleeding, but she wasn't crying. Her hands were clawing at Carmine’s wrist with feral, desperate defiance.
Sitting calmly in the leather booth across from them was Matteo Rossi, sipping red wine from a crystal goblet as if watching an amusing theatrical production.
"Dominic," Carmine sneered, his breath reeking of cheap cocaine and expensive champagne. "You look remarkably agile for a man who spent six months soiling his sheets. Take one more step, and I decorate this velvet wallpaper with your nurse's brains!"
The sight of Faith bleeding under Carmine’s filthy hands tore the last shred of civilized restraint from my soul. The air in the private alcove turned sub-zero.
"Let her go, Carmine," I said, my voice dangerously calm, vibrating with the authority that once ruled three million souls. "You have five seconds to take your hands off her before I take your arms off your shoulders."
Carmine laughed nervously, his grip tightening in her hair, but his dark eyes darted frantically toward my stance. He was looking at my legs. He was looking for the tremor, the weakness, the vulnerability he had exploited to orchestrate the Iron Street slaughter.
He found nothing. I stood before him balanced, lethal, and entirely unbroken.
"You're a relic, Dominic!" Carmine shouted, his voice cracking with hysteria. "Matteo controls the docks now! The feds have the warrants signed! You're dead, she's dead, and I’m taking everything you built!"
"You always were an idiot, Carmine," Faith choked out, her voice raw through the pressure on her throat.
Before Carmine could register her words, Faith dropped her entire body weight toward the floor, driving the sharp wooden pencil she had concealed in her sleeve directly into the inside of Carmine’s thigh—the exact nerve junction she had used to shock my legs into movement months ago.
Carmine shrieked in absolute agony as his femoral nerve misfired violently. His grip slipped from her hair, and his gun drifted downward by an inch.
That single inch was all the daylight I needed.
I stepped inside his guard, slapped the barrel away from Faith's falling body, and drove the cherry-wood cane across Carmine’s right clavicle with a sickening, audible snap. The revolver clattered harmlessly against the mahogany floor. Carmine hit his knees, sobbing in the carpet, clutching his shattered collarbone.
I swept Faith behind my body with my left arm, pulling her against my chest. She was trembling with pure adrenaline, but she stood tall, wrapping her arms around my torso like an unbreakable anchor.
Matteo Rossi slowly set his wine glass down on the table, his aristocratic smile finally fading into cold, calculated irritation.
"Impressive physical recovery, Mr. Carter," Matteo said, resting his hands flat on the table. "Truly miraculous. But violence in a nightclub won't stop the military shipment currently rolling into your harbor. In two hours, federal tactical teams will raid Terminal Four. When they find thirty crates of stolen assault weaponry bearing your family's distribution crest, no amount of righteous anger will keep you out of ADX Florence."
"Check your phone, Matteo," a deep voice rumbled from the staircase.
Old Sal walked into the VIP lounge, holding a tablet computer displaying a live video feed from the Port of Chicago. On the screen, dozens of blue federal lights illuminated the dark shoreline.
Matteo’s dark eyes narrowed. "What have you done?"
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"I didn't call the FBI, Matteo," I said, cold satisfaction washing through my veins. "I called the United States Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Service three hours before we left the office. Marcus Vance found your forged manifests on the Rotterdam line and sent the raw server logs directly to the Pentagon. They aren't raiding my terminal to arrest me. They’re seizing your cargo ship in international waters off the coast of Milwaukee right now."
Matteo’s face turned gray as his satellite phone on the table began vibrating violently with incoming notifications.
