Chapter 5
The basement beneath the Cross estate had once been a wine cellar during the Prohibition era.
Now, it was constructed of poured reinforced concrete, soundproofed walls, and cold steel drains set into the floor.
The captive was strapped to a heavy iron chair beneath a solitary bare bulb that hummed with fluorescent light.
His tactical vest had been stripped away, leaving him in a torn black undershirt soaked in sweat and blood.
His left shoulder was wrapped in a crude field dressing where one of Nathan’s snipers had clipped him.
Adrian stood five feet away, having changed into a clean black shirt and fresh trousers.
His hands were scrubbed clean, but the violence clinging to his presence was unmistakable.
Emily stood near the heavy steel doorway, refusing to stay upstairs despite Adrian’s warnings.
She had wrapped herself in a clean, oversized sweater and denim jeans from her staff quarters.
Her hair was tied back, and her face was pale, but her eyes were fixed unwaveringly on the man in the chair.
She held the titanium drive in her front pocket, her hand resting over it like a protective talisman.
“His name is Sergei Borov,” Nathan said, reading from a tablet as he stood beside Adrian.
“Former Russian Spetsnaz.”
“Discharged dishonorably eight years ago.”
“Currently working as a private contract commander out of Brighton Beach.”
Adrian didn't look at the tablet.
He kept his cold, measuring gaze on Sergei’s swollen face.
“Who hired you, Sergei?” Adrian asked smoothly.
Sergei spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the concrete floor.
He looked up at Adrian through half-closed, bruised eyes and smiled a crooked, broken grin.
“Go to hell, Cross,” Sergei rasped in a thick accent.
“You think you own this city?”
“Your time is over.”
“The old families are coming back to take what you stole.”
Adrian stepped forward, closing the distance slowly, deliberately.
He didn't pull a weapon.
He didn't raise his fists.
He simply leaned down until his eyes were level with the mercenary’s.
“I didn't steal anything from Vincent Vance,” Adrian said, each syllable slicing through the humid air of the cellar.
“I built this empire while his son was snorting heroin in Monaco and selling his family's honor to Russian syndicates.”
“Julian is a coward who blows up boats from five miles away because he doesn't have the stomach to look a man in the eye when he cuts his throat.”
Sergei’s smile vanished, replaced by a flicker of genuine unease.
“Julian Vance didn't hire me,” Sergei muttered.
Adrian paused.
Behind him, Emily stepped forward, her heart stopping in her chest.
“What did you say?” she demanded, her voice cutting through the damp room.
Sergei turned his head toward her, his gaze wandering over her face until recognition flashed in his pupils.
“The ghost girl,” Sergei whispered, chuckling weakly.
“Julian Vance didn't hire us, little bird.”
“Julian Vance has been dead for three days.”
Emily felt the room tilt violently beneath her feet.
She reached out, steadying herself against the cool concrete wall.
“That’s impossible,” she whispered.
“The message on my wall... he knew I was alive.”
“Julian didn't write that,” Sergei hissed, coughing painfully.
“Dominic Russo wrote it.”
Adrian’s jaw set so hard that a muscle twitched visibly beneath his beard.
Dominic Russo.
The head of the five families' commission in New York, and Adrian's most powerful nominal ally in the eastern shipping consortium.
For seven years, Adrian and Russo had maintained a fragile, heavily armed truce that divided the harbor terminals.
“Explain,” Adrian ordered, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper that made even Nathan shift uncomfortably.
Sergei leaned his head back against the iron chair, breathing heavily through his broken nose.
“Julian Vance came back to New York three weeks ago,” Sergei explained, staring at the ceiling bulb.
“He had spent ten years hiding in Saint Petersburg, running drugs for the Vorovskoy.”
“He ran out of money.”
“He came to Russo, begging for financing to reclaim his father’s territory.”
“He told Russo that the Vance master ledger was never destroyed in the explosion.”
“He said his little sister survived the blast and was hiding in the city with the master key.”
Sergei let out a wheezing laugh that ended in a groan of pain.
“Russo took the information.”
“Then he put a bullet in Julian’s head and threw his body into the Gowanus Canal.”
Emily covered her mouth with trembling fingers.
Her brother—the brother who had tried to murder her, who had slaughtered their parents, who had haunted her every waking moment for ten years—was already dead.
He had died like a dog in an alley, discarded by the very monsters he had tried to partner with.
“Russo didn't want Julian around to claim a percentage,” Adrian deduced, his mind connecting the brutal web of betrayal.
“Russo wants the master ledger for himself.”
“With that ledger, he can blackmail half the politicians in Albany and seize all twelve deep-water terminals in Brooklyn.”
“Cross Maritime would be choked out of the harbor within six months.”
“Russo sent us to the apartment to find the key,” Sergei whispered.
“When we didn't find it, we tracked the emergency call she placed.”
“We traced the number straight to your private encrypted line, Cross.”
Sergei looked at Adrian with pity and malice mixed together.
“Russo knows she’s here.”
“He knows she’s your weakness.”
Adrian stood up straight.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a clean handkerchief, and wiped an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve.
“Nathan,” Adrian said quietly.
“Sir?”
“Put a bullet behind his ear and burn the body in the furnace.”
“No!” Emily gasped, running toward Adrian and grabbing his arm.
“Adrian, wait! You can't just execute him!”
Adrian turned to look at her, his expression entirely devoid of warmth.
The man who had held her gently under the falling rain in the library was gone, replaced by the apex predator who ruled an empire of blood and steel.
“This man broke into your home, Emily,” Adrian said, his voice flat and unyielding.
“He came here to put you in chains and drag you to Dominic Russo.”
“If I let him live, he becomes a liability.”
“In my world, liabilities are buried.”
Emily looked from Adrian’s cold eyes to Sergei’s terrified face.
The reality of her new life crashed down upon her with suffocating weight.
She was no longer hiding in the shadows of a quiet kitchen.
She was standing on the front lines of a mafia war, and the man protecting her was the most dangerous creature in the jungle.
“Don't do it in front of me,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Adrian looked at her for three long seconds.
The ice in his eyes softened just a fraction.
May you like
“Take her upstairs, Nathan,” Adrian commanded softly.
“I'll handle this myself.”
