Chapter 8 - The Raid on 12th Street
The Underground 12th Street Club was a murky basement casino filled with cigar smoke, neon lights, and low-level mobsters counting illegal cash.
At 1:45 a.m., the heavy steel double doors of the club were blown off their hinges by a explosive charge.
BOOM!
Smoke and iron shrapnel tore through the entrance hall. Before the twenty armed guards inside could pull their weapons, fifteen tactical operators dressed in black armor poured through the breach, their silenced rifles coughing with lethal precision.
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!
Within thirty seconds, every guard in the main hall was disarmed, neutralized, or pinned to the floor under heavy boots. The casino patrons screamed, scattering in terror as Knox’s men secured the perimeter.
Tristan walked through the smoke, his black coat billowing behind him like the wings of a dark angel. Beside him walked Maya, protected by two heavy bodyguards.
In the center of the VIP lounge, sitting on a leather couch with a bloody bandage wrapped around his shattered jaw, sat Eddie Vance. Beside him, huddled in a corner, crying into her hands, was Lily—Maya’s nineteen-year-old sister.
"Lily!" Maya cried out, rushing past the guards.
"Maya?!" Lily looked up, her face pale, bruised around the eye. She threw her arms around her older sister, both girls collapsing onto the couch in a chaotic embrace of tears.
Eddie Vance shrank back into the cushions, his one unbroken eye staring at Tristan Wolfe in utter, horrified disbelief. He recognized the face instantly—the face that had been printed on every newspaper front page three months ago, the legendary shadow monarch of Chicago.
"Wolfe..." Eddie gurgled through his broken jaw, blood dripping onto his leather jacket. "You're... you're supposed to be dead..."
Tristan stopped two feet from Eddie, looking down at the groveling man with absolute disdain.
"A king doesn't die just because a dog bites his heel, Eddie," Tristan said softly.
Tristan reached into his pocket, pulled out the thirty-thousand-dollar fraudulent debt ledger Knox’s men had retrieved from the back office, and tossed it into Eddie’s lap.
"The debt is cleared," Tristan said flatly. "And now... you're going to call your master."
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Tristan pulled a satellite phone from Knox’s hand, dialed a memory-stored number, and held the receiver down to Eddie’s mouth.
"Call Marcus Webb," Tristan ordered. "Tell him the dead man has come for his crown."
