Chapter 8
The double mahogany doors leading into the grand ballroom were pushed wide open.
Emergency floodlights, battery-powered and casting a harsh, glaring white beam across the room, had been set up on tripods around the dance floor. The two hundred wealthy guests—judges, bank presidents, oil executives, and their diamond-clad wives—were huddled together on the parquet floor like cattle waiting for the slaughterhouse hammer.
Around the perimeter of the room stood six men in heavy tactical armor, their automatic rifles held in low-ready positions, sweeping across the weeping socialites.
At the center of the dance floor, standing directly beside the three-tiered wedding cake, was Viktor Cross.
He was sixty years old, with silver hair cropped close to a skull that looked like it had been carved from iron ore. He did not wear tactical gear; he wore an immaculate charcoal overcoat, a silk tie the color of dried blood, and polished Italian boots that had never seen a muddy trench. In his leather-gloved hand, he held an antique gold pocket watch, checking the time with theatrical patience.
Behind him, Isolde Vance was forced onto her knees by an operative, her ruined bridal veil pooling in the spilled champagne on the floor. Old Arthur Vance was weeping softly beside her, clutching his chest.
The heavy thud of leather shoes against the marble threshold drew every eye in the room.
Truett Hawthorne walked into the glare of the emergency lights.
He was alone. He had discarded the submachine gun, but his dark overcoat was unbuttoned, his posture broad, imposing, and completely fearless. His hands rested loosely at his sides, his signet ring catching the harsh beam of the floodlights. Behind him, Garran stumbled into the room, his hands trembling in the air, his face gray with terror.
"Truett," Viktor Cross greeted him, slipping the pocket watch into his vest. "You always did know how to make an entrance. Even when you were running the south docks with your father."
"You haven't changed, Viktor," Truett said, stopping ten paces away from the mercenary leader. "Still hiding behind hired guns and stealing from widows and children."
"Business is business, old friend," Cross replied with a thin, humorless smile. "Arthur Vance owed my syndicate forty million dollars. He offered me the privatization access codes to the North Atlantic Port Authority to clear the debt. Then his foolish son Julian tried to back out, and this charming bride decided to use your granddaughter as an unpaid courier."
Cross stepped toward Isolde, lightly tapping the top of her head with his gloved knuckles. She flinched, sobbing into her hands.
"I don't care about the Vance family, Truett," Cross continued, his pale eyes locking onto Truett’s face. "They are bankrupt nobodies. But you... you control the harbor unions. You control the deep-water terminals. I need the primary drive that was inside that diamond bracelet. Give it to me, and I walk out of this house with my men, leaving you to clean up the bodies."
"And if I don't?" Truett asked.
Cross sighed, gesturing toward the terrified guests huddled on the floor.
"If you don't, I instruct my men to execute three guests every sixty seconds until you produce it. Starting with the bride, then Arthur, and then that lovely councilwoman from Boston over there."
A woman in the crowd shrieked in horror, burying her head against her husband’s shoulder.
"You're a very confident man, Viktor," Truett said, his voice dropping into that quiet, lethal cadence that signaled an impending catastrophe. "You think you control this room because you brought eight men with rifles?"
Cross frowned slightly, the smile fading from his lips. "I control this room because I have the weapons, Truett. You have an empty hand and an old reputation."
"You forgot one detail, Viktor," Truett murmured.
"And what is that?"
"You forgot who built this house," Truett said.
May you like
Truett raised his left hand and snapped his fingers.
From the high vaulted ceiling, forty feet above the grand ballroom, the massive, two-ton crystal chandelier did not flicker—its heavy steel suspension cables detonated with a series of synchronized, deafening explosive charges.
