Chapter 5 - The Blood on the Contract
The basement poker den in South Boston smelled of stale beer, cheap cigars, and sweat.
At 11:42 PM, the heavy reinforced steel door of the club was blown off its hinges by a breaching charge.
Dust and smoke billowed into the room as six Mercer soldiers poured through the breach, their weapons clearing the room with terrifying, military efficiency. Rossi’s guards were disarmed and thrown against the walls before they could even draw their sidearms.
Tristan Wells scrambled back from the card table, knocking over his stack of chips, his face pale with terror as he tried to crawl under the felt table.
A heavy leather boot stepped on his hand, crushing his fingers against the floorboards.
Tristan shrieked in pain, looking up into the dark, imposing silhouette of Jude Mercer.
Jude reached down, grabbed Tristan by his collar, and yanked him up, slamming him face-first onto the poker table.
"Jude Mercer..." Tristan wept, his body shaking violently. "Please! Please, it wasn't my fault! The debt was real! I didn't have the money! I had to give them something!"
Jude didn't say a word. He pulled the three photographs from his coat pocket and tossed them onto the felt next to Tristan’s face.
"Is this your daughter?" Jude asked, his voice dead and calm.
"Yes... yes! Brinley!" Tristan stammered, tears streaming down his face. "Look, you can have them! Keep Audrey, keep the girl! I sign my rights away! Just let me walk out of here—"
Jude’s fist struck Tristan’s face with crushing force.
Tristan’s head snapped back, blood spraying across the green felt table as his nose shattered. He fell to the floor, coughing and groaning in agony.
Jude stepped over him, pulling a thick stack of legal documents from his coat. He set them on the table alongside a pen.
"This is a full release of all paternal rights, marriage dissolution, and a complete confession of financial fraud signed under your name," Jude stated coldly. "You are going to sign every page. And then you are going to get on a boat to Europe and never set foot on this continent again."
"And if I don't?" Tristan wheezed, holding his bleeding face.
Jude leaned down, his face inches from Tristan's terrifyingly hollow eyes.
"If you don't," Jude whispered softly, "I will hand you over to Marco Rossi myself. And I will tell him that you stole from him too."
Tristan’s hands shook so violently he could barely hold the pen. He signed every page in three minutes flat, his blood smudging the white paper.
Suddenly, the doors at the top of the stairs opened.
Marco Rossi stepped into the upper balcony of the basement, flanked by ten armed men holding assault rifles.
"You're a long way from home, Mercer," Marco sneered down at the room, his eyes wild with malice. "You really came all the way to Boston for a deadbeat's maid and a bastard kid? You've gone soft, old man."
Jude didn't look up at the rifles aimed at his head. He carefully folded the signed documents and placed them safely inside his inner breast pocket.
"I didn't come here for them, Marco," Jude said quietly, looking up at the rival underboss. "I came here for you."
"Kill them!" Marco screamed.
Before Marco's men could pull their triggers, the high basement windows shattered inward. Flashbang grenades rained down from the street level above, detonating with blinding light and deafening booms that filled the room with white smoke.
Jude moved with astonishing speed. He drew his pistol, firing three precise shots up through the smoke, catching Marco in the shoulder and sending him tumbling over the balcony railing, crashing onto the wooden floor below.
The basement erupted into chaos. Gunfire echoed like thunder in the enclosed space. Mercer’s soldiers systematically neutralized Rossi's men, their tactical training completely overwhelming the disorganized street gang.
Jude walked calmly through the smoke, stopping beside Marco Rossi, who was groaning on the floor, clutching his bleeding shoulder.
Jude pressed the barrel of his pistol against Marco's forehead.
"The Rossi family's debt is settled, Marco," Jude whispered over the ringing in Marco's ears. "If your men ever come near my gates again, I won't just take a shoulder. I will take your whole family."
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Marco nodded frantically, his eyes wild with pure, unadulterated terror. "Okay! Okay! We're done! It's over!"
Jude lowered his weapon, turned around, and walked out of the smoking basement into the cool night air, leaving the wreckage of his enemies behind him.
