Chapter 3 - The Siege of Blackwood Heights
Ten minutes in a war zone is an eternity.
Tristan used every second with ruthless, mechanical precision. He stripped weapons and ammo magazines off Callahan’s dead men, stacking them neatly by the doorway. He jammed the heavy oak apartment door with an iron pipe he ripped from the bathroom plumbing, creating a makeshift barricade that would buy precious seconds against a breach.
Then he looked out the window.
Below, in the weed-choked courtyard of Blackwood Heights, two black SUVs had just slid to a halt. Doors flew open. Armed men in tactical gear poured out, weapons drawn, forming a perimeter around the building.
And stepping out of the lead vehicle, holding an umbrella against the driving rain, was Marcus Doyle.
He looked immaculate in a charcoal wool overcoat, looking up toward the seventh-floor window as if he were admiring real estate rather than a execution site.
Inside the seventh-floor room, Callahan groaned, rolling over on the floor.
“Vail... please,” Callahan whimpered, clutching his bleeding jaw. “Let me go. I can testify against Marcus! I can help you take him down!”
Tristan looked down at him with cold detachment. “You helped murder my father, Reece. You don't get a redemption arc.”
Before Callahan could scream, the heavy iron pipe bracing the front door rattled violently.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Heavy slugs slammed into the wood, splintering it outward. Marcus’s elite enforcers were hitting the door with a battering ram.
Tristan took cover behind the reinforced concrete pillar near the kitchenette, his Glock raised, a spare magazine wedged firmly between his belt teeth.
“Break it down!” a voice roared from the hallway.
With a deafening crash, the entire door frame caved inward. Two armed men rushed through the threshold, weapons raised—and were immediately met with a blistering crossfire of controlled, lethal shots from Tristan’s position. Both men spun and collapsed into the wreckage.
“Flush him out!” someone shouted from the hall.
A flash-bang grenade clattered across the linoleum floor.
Tristan closed his eyes and turned his head just as the device detonated with a blinding white flash and a concussive shockwave that rattled his teeth.
Before the ringing in his ears could fade, three more men swarmed into the apartment, firing blindly.
Tristan rolled across the floor, returning fire from a prone position. Two men dropped, clutching their legs and chests. The third lunged forward, tackling Tristan to the ground.
They wrestled on the broken glass and dust, elbows flying, breaths coming in ragged gasps. The enforcer was massive, a heavyweight street fighter hired out of the Brooklyn docks. He managed to pin Tristan’s arm, raising a heavy combat knife toward his throat.
Tristan locked his forearm against the man’s wrist, straining every fiber of his strength as the blade inched closer, millimeter by millimeter, reflecting the flashing lights outside.
Crack.
A small, sharp report echoed from the doorway.
The big enforcer’s eyes went wide. His grip on the knife suddenly slackened, and he slumped sideways, dead weight crashing onto the floor.
Standing in the doorway, holding the compact pistol Tristan had given her with both hands, was Maya.
Her small chest was heaving. Her face was pale as chalk, but her grip on the gun was steady.
Tristan shoved the dead man off him, scrambling up. “Maya! What are you doing here? I told you to go to the drain!”
“Eli is safe in the alley,” she said, her voice shaking violently, though her eyes blazed with fierce defiance. “He’s with the old man from the church. He came back for us. But I wasn't going to let them kill you.”
Tristan felt a knot tighten in his chest—a feeling so foreign, so deeply human, it almost broke his concentration.
He grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her behind the concrete pillar. “Stay down. Marcus is coming.”
As if summoned by his words, slow, deliberate footsteps echoed in the hallway outside.
The gunfire stopped. The smoke cleared just enough to reveal a single figure stepping over the bodies in the doorway.
Marcus Doyle.
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He wasn't wearing his coat anymore. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing expensive gold cufflinks on his forearms. In his right hand, he held a sleek, silenced Sig Sauer pistol, the barrel still wisping with thin gray smoke.
He stopped a few feet away, looking at Tristan with a calm, almost disappointed smile.
