Chapter 7 - Blood on the Hudson
Down in the lower levels of the 57th Street skyscraper, the battle for the Cross empire was brief, brutal, and decisive.
Salvatore Moretti had believed the element of surprise was on his side. He had believed that the chaos at the Hudson Children’s Foundation gala would leave Gabriel off-balance, scrambling to control the press and contain the fallout among the city’s political elite.
He had severely underestimated the depths of a father’s wrath.
Gabriel did not wait for Moretti’s strike team to breach the basement. Through the syndicate’s private surveillance network, he tracked the three black SUVs carrying Moretti’s top enforcers as they entered a private commercial parking garage two blocks south of the tower—the staging ground for their subterranean approach.
Gabriel led the counter-assault personally.
Flanked by Viktor and twenty heavily armed Cross syndicate operators, Gabriel entered the garage through an underground service tunnel. Before the Moretti soldiers could even unholster their weapons, the parking structure was turned into an inescapable kill box.
Flashbang grenades illuminated the damp concrete in blinding bursts of white light. The concussive blasts were followed by the deafening, rhythmic crack of suppressed automatic gunfire.
Gabriel moved through the smoke like a phantom. He fired with ruthless, mechanical precision. Every shot was lethal; every target was neutralized before they could register the storm breaking over them.
Within four minutes, sixteen of Moretti’s elite mercenaries lay dead or incapacitated on the grease-stained pavement.
Gabriel walked through the drifting cordite smoke, his boots stepping over shattered glass and spent shell casings, until he stopped before the rear of the central SUV.
There, slumped against the rear bumper, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the shoulder, sat Dino Moretti—Salvatore Moretti’s eldest son and heir apparent.
Dino looked up, his face twisted in agony and terror as Gabriel towered over him, the barrel of his customized 1911 pistol smoking faintly in the cold subterranean draft.
"Cross... wait," Dino gasped, spitting blood onto his designer leather jacket. "My father... he just wanted leverage! We weren't gonna hurt the kids! We just wanted you to negotiate the docks!"
Gabriel stared down at him with eyes as cold and empty as the bottom of the Atlantic.
"You brought weapons within two blocks of my children," Gabriel said. His voice was utterly devoid of human emotion. It was the voice of an executioner carrying out a cosmic decree.
"Gabriel, please! We have a treaty! The Commission will destroy you if you kill me!" Dino begged, raising a trembling, bloody hand.
"I am the Commission," Gabriel whispered.
He pulled the trigger twice.
Gabriel didn't look down at the body. He holstered his weapon, turned to Viktor, and pulled a clean linen handkerchief from his pocket to wipe a fleck of oil from his cheek.
"Clear this garage," Gabriel ordered smoothly. "Burn the vehicles. Dump the trash in the harbor. And bring Salvatore Moretti to the estate in Westchester. I want him waiting in the courtyard by sunrise."
"And the Vale girl, Boss?" Viktor asked, reloading his tactical rifle with a crisp mechanical snap. "What do we do with Serena?"
Gabriel paused, his storm-gray eyes hardening into polished flint.
May you like
"Serena wanted an audience," Gabriel said coldly. "She wanted to be the center of attention in high society. Bring her to Westchester too. Let her witness the cost of her ambitions."
***
