Chapter 9 - The Fall of the Rossi Empire
Midnight over Lake Michigan arrived with thunder and gunfire.
Julian Rossi had deployed sixty heavily armed mercenaries to seize the Carter shipping hub, expecting an empire in disarray, crippled by grief and internal betrayal. What he walked into was an ambush prepared by the most lethal tactician Chicago had ever known.
Ethan didn't direct the assault from an armored bunker. He led the breach himself.
From the observation monitor inside the tactical command van parked two miles away, I watched drone footage of the warehouse docks erupting into chaos. Carter's armored trucks breached the perimeter gates, pinning Rossi's convoy against the seawall. Julian had brought Victoria along as an insurance policy, but she proved useless when Carter's snipers systematically eliminated his escort in under three minutes.
Julian attempted to flee via a high-speed cigarette boat docked at Pier 9, but Ethan had already mined the harbor exit with heavy steel boom nets. The boat slammed into the barrier, its hull splintering on impact.
When Julian dragged himself onto the snow-covered dock, Ethan was already waiting.
The security camera showed Julian raising his weapon, but Ethan was faster. A single shot shattered Julian’s wrist, sending the gun spinning across the ice. Ethan closed the distance, grabbed Rossi by the throat, and slammed him against the shipping container.
I listened to the live radio feed coming through the console.
"This is for Thomas Vance," Ethan’s voice cut through the static, cold and merciless. "My father-in-law."
"Carter, wait—we can split the accounts!" Julian choked out, thrashing in Ethan's iron grip. "The money is already transferred! You kill me, you lose twenty million!"
"I don't care about the money," Ethan replied. "You took something priceless from my wife."
The radio clicked with the sound of a final, heavy impact. Julian Rossi’s reign over the Midwest was over.
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By 4:00 a.m., federal agents and state police—tipped off by an anonymous dump of encrypted files Marcus had delivered to the U.S. Attorney’s office—swept through every Rossi property in three states. Victoria Hale was taken into federal custody directly from the docks, facing federal racketeering, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit murder charges that guaranteed she would spend the rest of her life in a maximum-security penitentiary.
The war was over. The blood had been answered.
