The 14th Street dock looked like a steel graveyard, its rusted crane gantries jutting aggressively into the leaden sky.
John parked the stolen loaner car behind a crumbling brick wall three hundred meters from the target zone. The moment he stepped out of the vehicle, the freezing rain soaked through his trench coat, causing the fresh stitches in his abdomen and collarbone to burn like hot iron.
He surveyed the perimeter of Warehouse B7. Four exterior guards.
Two men were standing beneath the corrugated tin roof of an old guard shack, smoking. The cherry-red glow of their cigarettes flickered faintly through the rain and mist.
Two more men were patrolling the flat warehouse rooftop, their heavy combat boots clanging rhythmically against the metal decking.
John ghosted toward the rusted side door, moving with absolute, liquid silence. He drew his Ka-Bar Tanto knife and wedged the serrated tip into the hasp of the old-fashioned padlock, applying precise torque until the brass mechanism snapped.
He adjusted his breathing, letting the icy rainwater slide down his chin and soak into his collar. He drew the HK P30L from his shoulder holster.
Pfft-pfft.
Two 9mm hollow-point rounds sliced through the rain. The suppressed shots were perfectly placed, striking both men in the guard shack dead in the forehead. They collapsed limply, the faint sound of the gunfire entirely swallowed by the drumming rain and the crash of the nearby ocean waves.
John dropped low and sprinted across the open asphalt, pressing his back flat against the corrugated steel wall of the warehouse to avoid the sightlines of the rooftop patrol.
He heard the crisp snick of a Zippo lighter striking just around the corner. He held his breath and peered around the edge of the steel siding.
The two rooftop guards had descended the fire escape and were huddling together against the wall to light fresh cigarettes.
Ignoring the excruciating, tearing pain radiating from his stitched torso, John exploded around the corner like a hunting leopard.
Gripping the Ka-Bar in a reverse icepick hold with his left hand, he drove the blade forward with terrifying speed, sinking the serrated steel deep into the left guard's carotid artery. Hot arterial blood sprayed across the rusted wall, blooming into a bizarre, crimson flower in the rain.
The guard on the right panicked, frantically clawing for his holstered sidearm. John didn't even aim. He simply pressed the muzzle of the P30L directly against the man's temple and pulled the trigger. Skull fragments and gray matter splattered against the steel siding.
John wiped his blade, sheathed it, and scaled the rusted fire ladder to the roof.
A fifth guard, hearing the faint scuffle over the rain, turned toward the ladder just as John crested the edge.
Before the man could shout, John's left hand shot out like a vice, crushing the man's windpipe and slamming him backward against an HVAC unit. Simultaneously, John's right hand drew the Ka-Bar and drove it upward, slipping the blade cleanly between the man's ribs and piercing the lower lung lobe.
The guard's pupils dilated massively in shock. A froth of pink, bloody foam bubbled from his lips, washing away in the rain as his life faded.
A sixth guard, standing near the skylights, finally raised his rifle.
John was faster. He dropped the dying man and fired twice.
The first round shattered the guard's knee joint, dropping his elevation. The second round blew the top of his skull off.
The body pitched backward, tumbling off the edge of the roof and hitting the muddy asphalt below with a sickening thud.
The moment the body hit the ground, the warehouse erupted.
Suppressive gunfire tore through the corrugated roof from the three o'clock position. Bullets chewed into the HVAC unit John was using for cover, sending sparks and shrapnel flying into the rain.
John combat-rolled into the deeper shadows. He analyzed the bullet trajectories flashing through the dark out of the corner of his eye. At least four shooters were currently engaging him from inside the warehouse via the skylights.
John holstered the P30L. He reached down and stripped a Heckler & Koch UMP-45 submachine gun from the dead guard at his feet.
He dropped to one knee and fired a sustained burst through the thin metal roof. The heavy .45 caliber slugs punched through the steel easily, and a sharp scream echoed from the catwalk below.
John continued to lay down suppressive fire, forcing the remaining flankers into hard cover. The exact second the UMP's bolt locked back on an empty magazine, John discarded the weapon, letting it hang on its tactical sling, and instantly drew the Glock 26 with his left hand.
Two Bratva gunmen leaped down from the interior catwalks, trying to rush his position from the stairwell. John slid across the wet roof, firing upward from a low angle.
Two perfect headshots. The bodies crashed down the metal stairs, knocking over a rusted barrel of industrial lubricant. Viscous black grease spilled across the concrete floor inside.
John rolled toward the open skylight. His rain-soaked suit slid smoothly through the spreading grease on the catwalk below as he dropped into the warehouse, lunging toward a stack of wooden shipping crates for cover.
A massive .338 Lapua Magnum round from a Savage 110 BA sniper rifle detonated the concrete floor exactly where John had been standing a fraction of a second prior.
John located the sniper's muzzle flash in the rafters. He fired two rapid shots at the steel winch holding a suspended cargo net full of heavy machine parts directly above the sniper's nest. The cables snapped. Hundreds of kilograms of raw steel crashed downward, burying the sniper instantly.
Before John could even catch his breath to assess his wounds, a rush of cold air kissed the back of his neck.
He ducked and spun, driving a brutal sweep kick into the attacker's ankle.
The massive Russian enforcer lunged forward, wrapping his thick arms around John's torso in a bear hug, squeezing directly over his fresh bullet wounds. A blinding wave of agony washed over John, his vision momentarily tunneling to black.
Running purely on adrenaline and muscle memory, John drove a vicious elbow into the man's jaw, forcing him to loosen his grip. The second he was free, John spun. His left hand seized the attacker's wrist, applying a brutal joint lock that bent the arm backward at an unnatural angle.
With his right hand, John shoved the muzzle of the Glock 26 directly under the man's jaw.
Contact shot. The man's head snapped back, dead before he hit the ground.
John stood alone in the shadows.
Dozens of meters away, in the center of the massive, cavernous warehouse, a single tungsten-filament work light hung from a steel beam, illuminating a small clearing.
Marcus was chained by his wrists to a heavy steel gantry. He was shirtless. His torso was a horrific canvas of purple bruises and deep lacerations. A tactical combat knife was buried to the hilt in his left thigh. Thick, dark blood dripped down his bare legs, pooling on the concrete beneath his feet.
"Marcus..." John whispered, the sound entirely swallowed by the ambient noise of the storm outside.
He melted into the deep shadows cast by a towering stack of shipping containers, the P30L hanging loosely at his side, his index finger resting lightly against the trigger guard.
Viggo Tarasov stood directly beneath the harsh light, his back to the main bay doors. He was dressed in a pristine black suit, his silver hair impeccably combed despite the chaos.
Six heavily armed, elite syndicate bodyguards stood in a defensive semi-circle behind him.
"I can smell you, Jonathan," Viggo called out, his voice echoing loudly through the empty warehouse. He didn't turn around. "You smell like a soaking wet, dying old dog. Put the gun down and step into the light."
John didn't move a muscle.
Viggo sighed heavily. He gestured with two fingers.
One of the bodyguards stepped forward and delivered a brutal, winding kick to Marcus's shattered ribs.
Marcus groaned—a wet, hissing sound like a broken bellows escaping his ruined throat.
"This is your absolute last chance, John." Viggo's hand rested casually on the grip of the gold-plated Makarov PM holstered at his waist.
John stepped out from the shadows of the container, the heavy, wet hem of his trench coat billowing slightly around his legs.
"The rules are a cage, Jonathan. I see that now," Viggo said, finally turning around to face him. He drew the Makarov, leveling the barrel steadily at John's chest.
"I sent Perkins to the Continental to kill you. And this man," Viggo pointed the gold pistol at Marcus, "thwarted my plan. He chose you over the contract. Over me. And for that... today, you will both die."
Viggo didn't fire. He simply flicked his wrist.
Two bodyguards instantly charged John.
John raised the P30L. Two hollow-points punched through the first man's chest cavity; a third round entered his jaw, dropping him instantly.
The second bodyguard flanked him from the blind side, throwing a heavy haymaker. John slipped under the punch, blocked the man's arm, and twisted violently.
Crack!
With the sickening sound of an elbow dislocating, John spun the screaming man around, using his body as a meat shield while sweeping the P30L across the room.
He dropped the remaining two flanking guards with precise, methodical double-taps to the chest.
John shoved his human shield aside and dove toward a second row of containers as return fire erupted. A bullet grazed the shell of his ear, and the metal wall behind him deformed into a jagged honeycomb of bullet impacts.
He combat-rolled behind a forklift, dropping the empty magazine and slamming a fresh one home. The violent movement tore the stitches in his shoulder wide open; hot blood began pouring down his arm.
"You cannot kill me, John!" Viggo roared, his voice cracking with desperate, manic pride. "The Tarasov syndicate has three hundred guns in this city!"
"Then I'll take three hundred lives with me," John growled from the darkness.
The bodyguard on the right rushed his cover. The Glock 26 in John's left hand clicked empty.
John dropped the Glock, forced the man back with suppressive fire from the P30L, and suddenly drew the Ka-Bar.
He threw the heavy combat knife with blinding speed. The blade tumbled through the air and buried itself deep into the eye socket of a bodyguard attempting to peek around a crate. A horrific scream echoed through the rafters.
The final three bodyguards abandoned their defensive posture and rushed John from three different angles.
John snapped his pistol up and fired a single round into the tungsten bulb hanging from the ceiling.
With the sharp crash of breaking glass, the warehouse was plunged into near-total darkness.
John lunged toward the steel gantry where Marcus hung. Sparks showered the concrete at his heels as automatic fire from a CA-415 rifle chased him through the dark.
John scooped up a short-barreled pump-action shotgun dropped by one of the dead guards. A massive, smoldering muzzle flash erupted in the dark as a spread of 00-buckshot completely shredded the man with the rifle.
Working the pump with terrifying speed, John spun and fired the second shell into the shadows where the last two guards were attempting to flank him.
One man fell screaming, his legs ruined by buckshot. John transitioned back to the P30L and finished him with a clean shot to the head.
The warehouse went dead silent.
"It's over, Viggo," John rasped. He stood twenty feet from the mob boss, breathing heavily, blood dripping steadily from his chin and soaking his shirt.
Viggo suddenly burst into laughter—a hollow, broken, utterly exhausted sound that echoed through the graveyard of steel.
"You won, old dog. You killed them all," Viggo smiled bitterly. "But so what? He still dies."
Viggo raised the Makarov PM, pointing it directly at Marcus's head.
Bang!
John fired first. The bullet shattered Viggo's right forearm. The gold Makarov clattered to the concrete, a spray of blood painting the floor.
"Viggo. Do not force me to kill you," John said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, gravelly whisper. He kept the P30L trained perfectly on Viggo's center mass.
Viggo slowly turned his head, his gaze intensely scrutinizing. "What if I want to force you, Jonathan?"
Viggo reached down with his uninjured left hand, scooped the Makarov off the floor, and began to raise it toward John.
John didn't give him the chance to level the barrel.
He pulled the trigger. A 9mm round punched cleanly through Viggo's left chest.
The kinetic force of the impact threw Viggo backward. He stumbled two steps, his knees finally giving out, and collapsed heavily onto his back.
John walked slowly over to him. He stared down at the man who had built him, and the man who had tried to destroy him, watching the bloody bubbles forming on Viggo's lips.
"You knew I didn't want to kill you," John said softly.
"If you don't kill me... I am a dead man anyway," Viggo chuckled weakly, coughing up a mouthful of dark blood.
"The High Table issued a silence order. Sending Perkins into the Continental was crossing the line. Lynching an independent asset like Marcus... that was crossing the line twice. They will strip my territory. They will erase my legacy. They will not let me live."
John's eyes narrowed slightly. Viggo had committed suicide by cop. By Boogeyman.
"I also know... that it was Anthony who killed Iosef. Not you," Viggo gasped, his eyes dimming as his lungs filled with fluid. "It is a pity... my bastard son didn't have the guts... to look me in the eye and do this himself."
Hearing this, a sudden, freezing chill ran down John's spine. "You knew? The whole time?"
"My illegitimate son..." Viggo coughed violently, his body spasming as blood poured from the corner of his mouth. "Listen to me, old friend. I left a gift for him..."
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