Chapter 8 - The Enforcer
Before we could reset our positions, the heavy iron door of the cellar was kicked violently open with a deafening crash.
A massive figure stepped through the frame, easily towering over the rest of the mercenaries. It was Gregor—Viktor Rostov’s chief enforcer. His face was a patchwork of old knife scars, his broad shoulders covered in body armor, and in his right hand, he carried a customized automatic shotgun with a drum magazine.
“Amateurs,” Gregor growled in a thick Russian accent, scanning the unconscious bodies of his men scattered across the floor. His cold, dead eyes locked onto Evelyn, then shifted to me, and finally landed on Grace standing near the rafters. “Ah, the little blind girl. Rostov sends his apologies, Vincent. But empire-building requires a clean slate.”
Gregor raised his shotgun, his finger tightening on the trigger.
“Dad!” Grace yelled.
I lunged forward, pushing Grace out of the line of fire just as Gregor pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
Buckshot tore through the stone pillar where we had been standing, sending a storm of rock splinters and dust flying into the air. The concussive blast knocked me hard against the concrete floor, my rifle sliding out of my reach into the shadows.
“Vincent!” Evelyn screamed.
Gregor laughed, stepping forward into the cellar, pumping another shell into the chamber. “You’re out of bullets, Caruso. Your little empire ends tonight.”
Before Gregor could raise his weapon to finish me, Evelyn moved with blinding speed, charging straight at him with her steel batons raised.
Gregor grinned cruelly, pivoting effortlessly and backhanding Evelyn across the face with the heavy stock of his shotgun. Evelyn crashed hard against the stone wall, sliding to the floor with a groan, blood trickling from her temple.
“Evelyn!” Grace cried out.
My blood ran ice cold. With a surge of desperate adrenaline, I lunged toward my fallen Sig Sauer lying a few feet away, but Gregor’s heavy combat boot came down hard on my hand, pinning it to the floor with bone-crushing pressure.
I gritted my teeth against the searing pain, staring up at the massive enforcer as he aimed his shotgun directly down at my chest.
“Any last words, mob boss?” Gregor sneered.
“Yeah,” a calm, steady voice echoed from the shadows behind him. “Don’t underestimate a blind girl.”
Gregor frowned, starting to turn around, but it was too late.
Grace didn't use a gun. She didn't use a baton. Following the sound of his voice and the heavy vibration of his boots, she sprinted across the training mat, launched herself upward off a wooden wine crate, and drove both heels with every ounce of her strength directly into the side of Gregor’s temple.
The sheer momentum, combined with the element of surprise, caught the giant off guard. Gregor staggered sideways, losing his footing on the wine-slicked floor, and slammed his head violently against the sharp corner of a reinforced stone rack.
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His eyes rolled back, and the massive enforcer collapsed to the floor like a felled oak tree, completely unconscious.
Silence descended upon the cellar once more.
