Chapter 11: The Judas in the Penthouse
The agonizing, suffocating climb up fifty flights of unfinished concrete stairs felt like an eternity in hell.
Haley’s legs violently burned with lactic acid. Her lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass and fire. Every single time she heard a violent burst of automatic gunfire echo up the hollow elevator shaft from below, her heart violently skipped a beat, terrified that Cole had just been killed.
When she finally reached the fiftieth floor, she aggressively pressed her back against the cold, rough concrete of the stairwell door.
The penthouse level was a vast, completely open slab of raw concrete with absolutely no exterior walls. The freezing wind aggressively roared across the open floor, violently whipping thick plastic tarps and completely drowning out the sound of her approaching footsteps.
In the exact center of the floor, violently illuminated by a single, massive industrial floodlight, sat a portable command table.
Stefano Rossi was pacing aggressively around it. He looked exactly like his dead brother Gabriel, but with feral, violently unhinged eyes and a jagged scar tearing across his throat.
And standing perfectly calm directly beside the psychotic mobster, looking impeccably dressed in a tailored gray suit, was Victor Vance.
Her father’s oldest, most trusted friend. The man she called Uncle.
“She is incredibly persistent, I will gladly give her that,” Victor shouted casually over the howling wind. He poured Stefano a glass of expensive red wine from a crystal decanter. “But Alexander is entirely too old and nostalgic to hold the territory anymore, Stefano.”
“He aggressively burned my brother alive!” Stefano violently roared, slapping the wine glass out of Victor’s hand. It shattered violently against the concrete. “I don’t want his territory! I want the girl’s head in a damn box!”
“You will absolutely get your bloody revenge, Stefano,” Victor said calmly, casually wiping a drop of spilled wine from his silk cuff. “But we desperately need those eastern shipping routes. The Commission demands the massive profits from the narcotics trade, and Alexander was entirely too stubborn and moralistic to allow it.”
Haley felt a violently hot, sickening wave of pure betrayal wash over her entire body. She tightened her grip on the cold Glock.
She stepped aggressively out from behind the massive steel girder, stepping directly into the harsh, blinding circle of the floodlight.
“So you sold me out for a few shipping containers of heroin, Victor?” Haley’s voice cut through the howling wind like a razor blade.
Victor violently spun around. Absolute, unadulterated shock heavily registered on his aged, aristocratic face.
“Haley…” Victor breathed, his eyes wide. “You absolutely shouldn’t be here, sweetie.”
“I’m not your sweetie,” Haley said coldly, raising the Glock 19 and aiming it directly at his chest. “I’m the woman who is going to end your miserable life.”
