Chapter 6 - Breaking the Syndicate
The heavy steel door of the server room was already ajar. Inside, the blue glow of server racks cast long, jagged shadows across the polished floor.
Two of Mercer’s elite enforcers were already inside, frantically downloading data onto a portable hard drive connected to the main terminal.
Damian didn’t hesitate. He kicked the door wide open, his voice ringing like a gunshot through the room.
“Drop the drive!”
The two men spun around, weapons drawn. But Damian was faster. Two sharp, perfectly placed shots disarmed both assailants before they could even clear their holsters, sending them crashing hard against the server racks.
As Damian rushed forward to secure the terminal, I caught a sudden flicker of movement in the shadows above.
A third man—holding a suppressed submachine gun—was dropping down from the open ceiling ventilation shaft directly behind Damian’s unprotected back.
“Damian! Above you!” I screamed.
He spun around, but the assassin was already leveling his barrel.
Without thinking, I lunged forward, swinging the heavy steel wrench with all the strength in my body. The metal connected with the assassin’s temple with a dull, sickening crack, sending him careening sideways into a rack of server cables, where he collapsed unconscious in a tangle of wires.
Silence swallowed the room, broken only by the hum of cooling fans and our own heavy breathing.
Damian dropped his pistol back into its holster and crossed the room in two long strides, grabbing my shoulders and checking me over with frantic intensity.
“Are you hurt? Did he touch you?”
“I’m fine,” I breathed, dropping the heavy wrench onto the floor with a metallic clatter. My hands were shaking slightly, but my heart was steady. “The data is safe.”
Damian didn't say another word. He pulled me violently against his chest, wrapping his arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe, burying his face in my hair as if anchoring himself to the only real thing in a world built on blood and betrayal.
“You saved my life again,” he whispered fiercely against my ear.
May you like
“We’re even now,” I murmured, smiling against his shoulder.
Ten minutes later, Marcus Mercer himself was intercepted by Damian’s outer security perimeter three blocks away as he tried to flee in a waiting black SUV. The war for Boston was over. The syndicate was broken, and Damian Cross stood undisputed at the top of the city’s underworld—not as a tyrant ruling through fear alone, but as a king who finally had something worth protecting.
