Chapter 5 - The Ambush at Sunrise
The black SUV didn't slow down. It fishtailed on the icy pavement, its heavy tires screaming in protest as it swung sideways, cutting off our only exit route down the park's access road. The vehicle slammed to a halt just thirty feet away, blocking the narrow asphalt path between the frozen lake and a dense cluster of leafless elms.
The doors of the SUV flew open simultaneously.
Four men stepped out into the freezing dawn. They weren't street thugs or low-level muscle. They wore identical tactical black parkas, heavy combat boots, and carried suppressed submachine guns with professional, military-grade discipline. Their faces were obscured by dark balaclavas, leaving only cold, calculating eyes visible.
"Professional clean-up crew," Miller muttered, smoothly chambering a round into his firearm and stepping in front of me. "Ex-military, private security contractors. High tier, Boss."
I didn't flinch. I slowly reached inside my coat, my fingers wrapping around the cold, checkered grip of my customized Sig Sauer P226. For twenty years, I had played the role of a ruthless corporate tycoon, sitting behind mahogany desks and signing financial execution orders. But before I was the Ice King of Wall Street, I had learned how to survive in the brutal underground corridors of Eastern Europe before my corporate ascension. The instincts never truly died; they had just been buried under a mountain of money.
"Don't kill the driver," I murmured to Miller. "I want at least one of them alive to tell me who's paying their salary."
The lead tactical operative raised his weapon, his voice amplified slightly by a throat-mic as he shouted across the frozen grass.
"Julian Vance! Step away from the vehicle. This doesn't concern you. Hand over the woman and the child, and you walk away from this park alive."
Inside the armored Maybach, I could hear Sarah muffled cries through the thick, bulletproof glass, while little Elena pressed her tiny hands against the window, watching us with wide, unblinking eyes.
A dark, violent rage surged through my veins—a fire so hot it melted the ice around my heart completely.
"It concerns me," I shouted back, my voice carrying effortlessly across the frosty clearing, steady and laced with absolute contempt. "You've been hunting my family for twenty years. You picked the wrong morning to finish the job."
The lead operative didn't bother responding with words. He raised his suppressed submachine gun and squeezed the trigger.
Crack-crack-crack!
Bullets slammed into the side of the armored Maybach with dull, heavy thuds, harmlessly flattening against the military-grade ballistic plating.
Miller didn't hesitate. He returned fire with brutal, calculated precision, his weapon barking twice in rapid succession. The lead operative's right knee shattered, and he dropped heavily onto the frozen grass, screaming in agony as his weapon clattered away across the pavement.
The remaining three operatives scrambled for cover behind the doors of their black SUV, blind-firing wildly toward our position. Chunks of frozen bark exploded off the oak trees around us, and a stray round pinged off the roof of our car.
"Suppressing fire!" Miller yelled, laying down a relentless wall of lead that pinned the three gunmen behind their vehicle.
It was time to end this.
I didn't wait for Miller's permission. I ducked low, utilizing the heavy chassis of our Maybach as cover, and sprinted in a low crouch toward the side of the park's stone retaining wall, flanking the enemy's blind spot.
One of the operatives spotted my movement and pivoted his weapon toward me, his eyes wide behind his balaclava. He didn't have time to adjust his aim.
Before his finger could squeeze the trigger, I stepped out from behind the stone pillar, raised my Sig Sauer with a two-handed combat grip, and fired a single, clean shot.
The bullet caught the operative's weapon right in the receiver, shattering the steel mechanism in a shower of sparks and tearing through his heavy glove, dropping him instantly to his knees with a howl of pain.
Before the remaining two men could react, Miller was on them. With terrifying speed and efficiency, my bodyguard closed the distance, weapon butt colliding with one operative's jaw with a sickening crunch, while the other was slammed violently against the side of the SUV, disarmed, and dropped face-first onto the frozen pavement.
Silence descended upon the park once more, broken only by the whistling wind and the groans of the wounded men bleeding onto the grass.
I walked slowly toward the lead operative, who was clutching his shattered knee, his teeth clenched in agony. I stood over him, my long black coat dragging in the bloody snow, and pressed the cold steel barrel of my pistol directly against the center of his forehead.
"Who ordered the hit twenty years ago?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, yet carrying the weight of an executioner. "And who authorized the surveillance on my wife?"
May you like
The man spat a glob of blood onto the frost, glaring up at me with defiant, hatred-filled eyes. "You... you think you've won, Vance? You think—"
"I don't think," I interrupted coldly, cocking the hammer of my pistol with a sharp, metallic click. "I know. And you have about three seconds to decide if you want to die in a public park in Chicago, or live long enough to tell me the name of the man hiding behind the curtain."
