Chapter 9 - The Final Stand
Inside the Morales estate, the smoke was so thick it was impossible to see across the grand study.
Gabriel Morales stood by the shattered mahogany desk, his empty pistol lying on the floor beside him, a dark red stain spreading across his white dress shirt where a bullet had clipped his shoulder.
Viktor lay against the bookcase, wounded in the leg, still firing his last magazine toward the doorway.
Heavy footsteps echoed across the ruined marble foyer.
Through the smoke stepped Arthur Vance—impeccably dressed in a charcoal gray suit, holding a polished gold-plated revolver, flanked by four heavily armored mercenaries.
"It’s over, Gabriel," Vance sneered, his voice dripping with venom. "You should have stayed in the shadows where you belong. Where is the boy?"
Gabriel spat a drop of blood onto the charred carpet, a cold, defiant smile playing on his lips. "You're too late, Arthur. The ledger is already out of your reach."
Vance’s face twisted in fury. He raised his revolver, pointing it directly at Gabriel’s chest. "Then you die for nothing, old friend."
Before Vance could squeeze the trigger, a thunderous roar shook the foundations of the mansion.
Boom.
A massive concussive blast from the cliffside boathouse echoed across the estate, followed by the sound of sirens approaching rapidly from the lower highway—dozens of them, bearing federal insignia and state police markings.
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Vance froze, his eyes widening in sudden, unadulterated panic. "What is that?"
"Federal marshals," Gabriel laughed, coughing up blood. "You spent thirty years buying every cop in the city, Arthur. But you forgot that federal jurisdiction doesn't answer to City Hall."
