Chapter 7 - The Lion at the Door
Gabriel did not rush. He gently scooped Elena into his arms, lifting her featherlight, malnourished body off the freezing floor. He tucked her face against his chest, shielding her from the draft.
"Marco," Gabriel said, walking toward the landing. "Status on Dr. Evans?"
"He's stuck two blocks away behind Carroway’s barricade," Marco replied, drawing two extended magazines from his tactical belt. "Old man Carroway himself is down there. He thinks we're raiding his bookie dens. He doesn't know about Sterling's eviction scam."
"He knows," Gabriel said darkly. "Julian Sterling doesn't move a mouse in this city without paying Carroway his cheese."
Gabriel walked down the narrow, creaking staircase, stepping over empty bottles and peeling linoleum. Behind him, Marco and the two remaining operatives covered the rear, leaving Silas and his crippled thugs bleeding in the apartment.
As Gabriel reached the ground-floor vestibule, the glass in the front door shattered into a thousand glittering shards. A voice bellowed from the street through the howling wind and rain.
"Vance! You crossed the bridge without kissing the ring!"
It was Liam Carroway. The sixty-year-old boss of the West Side was infamous for his erratic temper and his love for sawed-off 12-gauge shotguns. Through the broken door frame, Gabriel saw headlights blazing through the rain. Ten men stood in an arc across the street, heavy trench coats soaked, shotguns and submachine guns leveled at the Maybach.
Inside the armored car, Gabriel could see Mia pressed against the reinforced back window, her tiny hands flat against the glass, her eyes wide with terror as armed men encircled her.
The fury that ignited in Gabriel Vance’s chest was unlike anything he had felt in twenty years.
"Liam," Gabriel said, stepping out onto the wet porch, Elena cradled in his left arm, entirely exposed to their guns.
Liam Carroway stood under a black umbrella held by a lieutenant. He chewed on a wet cigar, laughing raspy and low. "Look at the great Gabriel Vance! Playing nurse to a scrubwoman! Put her down, Vance. You owe me five hundred grand for the dock taxes you held back last month, and now you violate my street?"
"You allow your dogs to lay hands on a six-year-old girl, Liam?" Gabriel asked, his voice carrying clearly over the drumming downpour.
"I don't give a damn about a stray kid," Carroway barked, leveling a chrome shotgun directly at Gabriel’s chest. "This is my curb. Everything on it belongs to me. Hand over your gun, get on your knees, and maybe I don't send you back across the bridge in three different trash bags."
Gabriel looked directly at the Maybach. Mia was watching him. He saw her lips move behind the thick glass: The king pays what is owed.
Gabriel smiled—a cold, terrifying baring of teeth.
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"You should have checked who was behind your men, Liam," Gabriel whispered.
From the rooftops of the adjacent tenement buildings, red laser dots suddenly rained down from the dark, painting dozens of crimson points onto Carroway’s chest, his men's temples, and their shotgun barrels.
