Chapter 4 - The Battle of Blackwood Ridge
The blizzard raged with unforgiving violence across the towering pine forests of Blackwood Ridge.
At 4:00 AM, three heavy tactical assault vehicles plowed through the deep snow, their lights blacked out, moving silently up the winding mountain road toward St. Jude’s Sanatorium.
Inside the lead vehicle, I sat in full tactical armor. A sleek black kevlar vest was strapped over my chest, carrying six spare magazines, high-grade explosives, and a combat blade. In my hands, I held a suppressed HK416 assault rifle.
Beside me sat Marcus’s tactical security chief, Gabriel—a former Special Forces operator who had served as my personal bodyguard for a decade—alongside twelve of my most loyal elite soldiers.
"Boss," Gabriel checked the action on his rifle. "We've disabled the facility's external communications and thermal perimeter sensors. Leo’s got their security cameras playing a twenty-minute loop. But once we blow the main gates, we'll have about fifteen minutes before Carmine’s regional reinforcements arrive."
"Fifteen minutes is fourteen minutes more than I need," I said coldly. "Remember the primary objective: Extraction of Subject T-01. Anyone standing in your way is an enemy. Leave no one standing."
"Understood, Boss."
The lead vehicle slammed through the perimeter security gates of the sanatorium, shattering the heavy iron bars into splinters.
"GO! GO! GO!" Gabriel barked.
We spilled out into the blinding white storm, tactical flashlights cutting through the darkness.
Alarm sirens began to blare across the complex, red strobe lights flashing against the snow-covered brick facade of the main building. Mercenaries in white camouflage winter gear poured out onto the balconies, opening fire with automatic weapons.
"Suppressive fire!" Gabriel shouted.
My team laid down a wall of lead, driving the guards back from the entryways.
I advanced up the concrete steps, firing short, controlled three-round bursts. Three mercenaries dropped over the railing into the snowbanks below.
I breached the heavy double doors with a breaching charge. BOOM! The doors blew inward in a shower of sparks and metal fragments.
We flooded into the sterile, white tiled hallways of the facility.
The battle was swift, brutal, and absolute. My men moved like a scythe through corn, clearing every corridor with terrifying efficiency. Carmine’s mercenaries, used to intimidating helpless targets, were utterly unprepared for the ferocious, disciplined fury of Victor Vance’s personal guard.
Within seven minutes, the lower floors were secured.
I kicked open the heavy security doors leading to the subterranean medical basement. Two guards inside drew their sidearms, but I eliminated them with two quick shots to the chest before they could squeeze their triggers.
At the end of the hall stood Room 104.
I stepped inside, my boots crunching over broken glass.
There, surrounded by chirping medical monitors and clear plastic tubing, lay Julian Thorne.
His face was gaunt, his body thin and scarred, but his chest was rising and falling softly.
I lowered my rifle, stepped over to the bed, and looked down at the man I had shot six years ago in the pine forests. The guilt that had clawed at my soul for six long years surged back, hot and painful.
"Julian," I whispered.
I reached down, grabbed the medical harness, and unclipped the monitoring leads from his chest.
"Boss! We've got company!" Gabriel shouted from the corridor outside. "Two heavy transports just pulled up to the rear courtyard! It's Carmine himself! He’s brought thirty more men!"
"Hold the stairwell!" I ordered.
I slung my rifle over my back, leaned over the bed, and lifted Julian’s frail body into my arms. Despite his height, six years of captivity had reduced his weight to almost nothing.
I carried him out into the hallway just as heavy gunfire erupted from the upper stairwell. Bullets pinged against the concrete walls, sending sparks cascading over our heads.
"Fall back to the extraction vehicles!" I yelled to Gabriel. "Cover the rear!"
We fought our way out of the burning facility, stepping over fallen enemy soldiers into the freezing courtyard.
Standing beside a sleek bulletproof limousine at the edge of the courtyard was Don Carmine himself.
At seventy years old, Carmine looked like an elder statesman—tailored camel hair coat, silver hair neatly combed back, a cigar resting between his teeth. But behind his warm, grandfatherly eyes lay the cold, calculating mind of a sociopath who had ordered hundreds of murders without missing a beat.
Surrounding him were twenty armed mercenaries, their weapons locked onto us.
"Victor!" Carmine’s voice boomed over the wind, rich with theatrical disappointment. "My dear boy... look at what you've done. You've destroyed a fifty-million-dollar facility for a ghost."
I stepped into the center of the courtyard, holding Julian in my arms, my men forming a tight defensive wedge around me.
"He's not a ghost, Carmine," I said, my voice cutting through the blizzard like a blade. "And neither is my daughter."
Carmine’s eyes narrowed slightly, a thin, cruel smile playing on his lips. "Ah. So you found the little brat in the alley. I must admit, Marco was a disappointment. But it doesn't change anything, Victor. You were a magnificent weapon for twenty years. But weapons that develop feelings become liabilities."
Carmine raised his hand, signaling his men to open fire.
"You took everything from me, Carmine," I said softly, my thumb resting on a small remote detonator inside my tactical pocket. "You made me kill my brother. You killed Elena. But you made one critical error."
Carmine hesitated, his hand hovering in the air. "What error?"
"You left me alive."
I pressed the button on the detonator.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The four underground fuel tanks beneath the courtyard—which Leo had remotely over-pressurized five minutes earlier—exploded in a colossal column of orange fire and shattering ice.
The shockwave blew the surrounding snow into a blinding wall of steam and fire. Carmine’s mercenaries were thrown like ragdolls across the courtyard as the ground buckled and collapsed beneath their heavy vehicles.
"GET TO THE TRANSPORTS!" I roared to Gabriel.
May you like
We sprinted through the blinding smoke and fire, diving into our armored vehicles as the sanatorium complex collapsed into a towering inferno behind us.
The heavy tires gripped the snow, screaming as our transports roared away into the mountain night, leaving Carmine’s burning kingdom behind in the white wilderness.
