Chapter 8 - The Fall of Damien Cross
The private underground parking garage beneath Cross Logistics headquarters in Long Island City was cold, damp, and smelling of exhaust fumes and stale concrete.
Ten black armored SUVs formed a tight perimeter around the central pillars.
Damien Cross—a slick, impeccably dressed man in his late thirties with manicured hair and cold, reptilian eyes—paced back and forth beside a black Maybach, smoking a Cuban cigar. Surrounding him were twenty armed mercenaries holding assault rifles, their tension palpable in the heavy air.
“What do you mean the federal accounts are frozen?!” Damien roared into his satellite phone, his face turning crimson. “Get the offshore lawyers on the line! I want an injunction filed within the hour!”
He slammed the phone down just as the heavy industrial security gate at the entrance of the garage groaned and began to rise.
Headlights pierced the dim gloom.
Not a fleet of police cars. Not a squad of rival thugs.
A single, matte-black custom van rolled slowly into the center of the garage, followed by four black SUVs. The side door of the van slid open with a mechanical clatter.
Marcus Hale stepped out first, holding an assault rifle at port arms. Then, flanked by two towering security guards, Adrian Moretti rolled out of the van in his carbon-fiber wheelchair.
He didn't look like a victim. He looked like an executioner.
Damien let out a harsh, nervous laugh, tossing his cigar onto the concrete and crushing it beneath his Italian leather shoe.
“Well, well, well,” Damien sneered, gesturing with his hand as his twenty mercenaries raised their rifles, training the red laser sights directly on Adrian’s chest. “Look who decided to crawl out of his penthouse. Lost your bride already, Moretti? Or did she realize she didn't want to spend her youth wiping drool off a cripple?”
Adrian didn't blink. He stopped his wheelchair ten feet away from Damien, his face completely devoid of emotion.
“You made three fatal mistakes tonight, Damien,” Adrian said, his voice cutting through the damp garage like a razor blade.
Damien smirked. “Oh yeah? Enlighten me from your chair, big man.”
“First,” Adrian said calmly, holding up two fingers, “you tried to steal a woman who doesn't belong to you. Second, you thought money could buy off politicians who were already eating out of my hand.”
Adrian raised a third finger.
“And third... you threatened my son.”
Before Damien could issue an order to fire, the reinforced overhead security doors of the garage slammed shut with a deafening crash, sealing all exits. Simultaneously, red emergency strobes flared to life along the concrete walls.
From the overhead catwalks and ventilation ducts, thirty Moretti tactical operatives dropped down silently, their laser sights painting every single one of Damien’s mercenaries in a web of glowing red dots.
“Drop your weapons,” Marcus shouted, his voice echoing menacingly off the concrete pillars.
Damien’s mercenaries looked around in sheer panic. Within three seconds, all twenty guns clattered loudly against the concrete floor as the men threw their hands into the air.
Damien’s face drained of color. He staggered backward, stumbling against the door of his Maybach.
“No... no, this is impossible!” Damien stammered, his bravado entirely evaporating. “You’re just a crippled real estate investor! You’re out of the game!”
Adrian slowly rolled his wheelchair forward until he was standing—figuratively—at the apex of absolute power.
“I never left the game, Damien,” Adrian whispered, his eyes locking onto the terrified syndicate boss. “I just stopped playing in the shadows.”
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Marcus stepped forward, clamping heavy titanium handcuffs around Damien’s wrists and shoving him hard against the side of the car.
“Take him to the federal holding facility in Manhattan,” Adrian ordered coldly. “And make sure Senator Vance gets a front-row seat to the trial.”
