Chapter 24 - Concrete and Gunpowder
"Now, Isadora!" Rhys barked.
I slapped my hand down onto the emergency master console on the catwalk railing.
The hydraulic override engaged with a massive mechanical groan. Four multi-ton steel blast doors dropped from the ceiling with the force of guillotine blades, slamming onto the concrete exits with earth-shattering thuds, sealing the warehouse air-tight. At the same exact instant, I cut the main power breaker.
The halogen lights died. The warehouse plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
"Kill him!" Rostov screamed in sudden, blind panic.
Muzzle flashes strobed through the dark like violent fireworks as Rostov’s men sprayed wild automatic gunfire toward the center of the floor. But Rhys wasn't there anymore. He had already dropped into the maze of shipping containers like a phantom.
From above, wearing tactical night-vision goggles that bathed the world in emerald clarity, I brought my weapon up.
Two mercenaries were advancing down aisle three, sweeping their flashlights back and forth in terror. I exhaled, squeezing the trigger in two disciplined bursts. The suppressed cracks were barely louder than coughs. Both men collapsed onto the concrete, disarmed and neutralized before their comrades even realized they were down.
Below, Rhys moved with terrifying, surgical lethal grace.
He materialized from behind a rusted red container, grabbed an advancing gunman by the throat from behind, drove him against the steel wall, and swept his rifle away in a single fluid motion. Before the second gunman could pivot, Rhys fired two rounds from his sidearm through the man’s knee and shoulder, taking him down with ruthless efficiency.
"Where is he?! Find him!" Rostov shrieked, firing blindly into the shadows, his men dropping one by one into the gloom around him.
Within three minutes, the gunfire died completely.
Only the heavy, ragged breathing of Mikhail Rostov remained, echoing off the iron rafters. The ten elite mercenaries he had brought into the building were all disarmed, unconscious, or pinned beneath Rhys’s security detail, who had infiltrated through the lower utility tunnels.
Rostov backed up against a towering pillar of steel containers, clutching his detonator with trembling, sweat-soaked hands. "Stay back! I’ll blow us all to hell! I swear to God, Calder, I’ll take this entire block down!"
A heavy shadow detached itself from the darkness behind him.
Rhys didn't shoot. He closed the distance with terrifying speed, his hand clamping around Rostov’s wrist like an iron vise. With a sickening CRACK, Rhys snapped the man’s wrist bones, forcing the detonator to slip from his limp fingers. Rhys caught the falling device with his other hand, disarmed the switch with his thumb, and hurled it away across the floor.
Then, Rhys slammed Rostov face-first against the corrugated iron container, his forearm pressing into the back of the older man’s neck with enough pressure to suffocate him.
"You threatened my daughter," Rhys whispered into Rostov's ear, his voice so quiet, so cold, that it chilled the blood in my veins even from twenty feet away. "You put her face in a folder. You brought your filth to my family’s doorstep."
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"P-please..." Rostov choked out, his arrogance crumbling into pure, unvarnished cowardice. "Take the money... take everything..."
Rhys leaned in closer, his lips brushing the shell of Rostov’s ear. "The money is already gone, Mikhail. Your accounts were seized by the federal treasury twenty minutes ago. You aren't leaving this city in a private jet. You are leaving in an armored van bound for Marion Federal Penitentiary, where you will spend the rest of your miserable life staring at a concrete wall."
