Chapter 3 - Blood and Steel
The digital displays on my secure monitoring console flickered to life, casting an eerie blue glow across the dark wood of my study. On the primary screen, the feed from the ground-floor security desk showed three men in tailored charcoal suits standing calmly in front of the shattered remains of the glass turnstiles.
They didn't look like street thugs or mob enforcers. They moved with the terrifying, synchronized precision of paramilitary operatives—men who had operated in black sites and war zones. One of them, a tall man with a jagged scar running down his left cheek, casually pulled a silenced pistol from his coat and raised it toward my head of security.
"Boss," Marcus’s voice crackled through the encrypted earpiece, strained and urgent. "They bypassed the biometric locks using an override code. It’s an inside job. They’re heading for the private elevator shaft right now."
My grip on the edge of the mahogany desk tightened until my knuckles turned stark white. An inside job. Someone in my inner circle—someone with clearance codes—had just sold out my sanctuary, and worse, had put a target on the backs of my two little boys sleeping down the hall.
"Fall back to the reinforced panic corridor on the thirty-fifth floor," I commanded, my voice dropping into that dark, cold register that made even my most hardened capos shudder. "Do not engage them in the open lobby. Let them come up. I want them inside the kill box."
"Copy that, boss. Moving now."
I cut the transmission, reached into the hidden compartment beneath my desk, and pulled out a customized matte-black Sig Sauer P226. I checked the magazine—fully loaded with hollow-points—and slid it home with a sharp, metallic click.
Walking out of the study, I paused at the doorway of the guest bedroom. Inside, Noah and Caleb were curled up together under a heavy down blanket. Exhaustion had finally claimed them; they were fast asleep, their breathing soft and even. The sight of their small chests rising and falling sent a surge of lethal protectiveness through my veins that felt less like human emotion and more like divine wrath.
Whoever had sent those men—and whoever had betrayed me from within—was going to learn why the name Ashford was whispered with absolute terror across the Midwest.
I locked the reinforced steel door of the bedroom from the outside, engaging the secondary deadbolts that could withstand a rocket-propelled grenade. Then I stepped into the central corridor of the penthouse, waiting in the shadows as the private elevator indicator lights began to climb.
Ding.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft hiss.
The three operatives stepped out into the dimly lit foyer, moving with cold, practiced efficiency. The leader with the scarred cheek raised his weapon, scanning the hallway with ice-blue eyes.
"Clear," he muttered into his comms.
"You're standing in my home," I said from the darkness of the hallway archway.
All three men whipped around in a fraction of a second, their barrels leveling toward my voice. But I was already moving.
The first gunshot shattered the quiet of the penthouse. My round caught the lead operative square in the center of his ballistic vest, dropping him backward with the force of a sledgehammer. The second man fired wildly, gouging a chunk out of the venetian plaster wall, but before he could squeeze off a second round, my second shot took him through the shoulder, spinning him into a mahogany side table.
The third man—the one with the scar—dived behind a marble pillar, returning fire with suppressive bursts that chewed up the Persian rug at my feet.
"Damian Ashford!" the scarred man yelled over the roar of gunfire, his voice dripping with malice. "You can’t protect them! The council wants the boys, and they want you in the dirt!"
"The council can send whoever they want," I snarled, stepping out from the shadows, letting him see the cold, dead look in my gray-green eyes. "Tell them I’m keeping the boys. And I’m coming for every single one of them."
Before he could pivot his weapon, I closed the distance with terrifying speed, slamming the butt of my pistol across his temple. He collapsed to the marble floor, unconscious and bleeding.
I stood over him, breathing heavily, my phone buzzing violently in my pocket. I pulled it out. It was Lauren Pierce.
I swiped and answered. "Lauren. Speak."
May you like
"Mr. Ashford," she gasped, and this time, the panic in her voice was undeniable. "I’m locked in the basement archive, but... but you need to check the financial transfers from this morning. Someone just drained thirty million dollars from the syndicate accounts—and the authorization came from your personal terminal."
I stared down at the unconscious assassin at my feet, the horrifying puzzle pieces clicking together in my mind. The betrayal wasn't just on the outside. It was sitting right beside me.
