Chapter 273

Chapter 273
Wesley
 
The gunfire was getting heavier. Closer. I could hear shouting now, orders being barked in a language that definitely wasn't English and definitely wasn't the broken street slang the Syndicate favored.
 
We burst out of the office into the main floor of the warehouse—a cavernous space filled with ancient machinery and rusted shipping containers stacked three high. My men were scrambling for cover, their faces painted with shock and fear.
 
Because pouring through the entrance like a well-oiled machine was a new force. Fifty men, maybe more, all wearing black tactical gear and carrying serious hardware. AR-15s. Shotguns. One guy in the back had what looked like a goddamn grenade launcher.
 
But it was the armbands that made my blood run cold.
 
Red fabric. Black crow embroidered on them, talons clutching a dagger.
 
"Fuck," Elijah breathed beside me. "Those are—"
 
"Corsetti colors," I finished. "Italian mob."
 
But that didn't make sense. Lance had told me the New York families were broken. Scattered. We'd taken down their operations, frozen their assets, turned them into ghosts.
 
Except these men didn't look like ghosts.
 
They looked like an army.
 
The man leading them was impossible to miss. Six feet tall, barrel-chested, with a thick black beard that would've made a Viking jealous. Dark sunglasses even though we were indoors and the light was shit. He moved with the confidence of someone who owned every room he walked into, and when he barked orders in rapid-fire Italian, his men responded like a choreographed dance.
 
Within seconds, they'd established a perimeter and were advancing on my scattered forces with military precision.
 
"Madonna puttana!" one of them shouted, taking cover behind a shipping container and laying down suppressing fire that had three of my guys pinned.
 
My men were fighting back, but they were disorganized. Panicked. We'd been in combat mode for hours, and this fresh force had caught us completely off-guard.
 
Elijah was practically vibrating beside me, his earlier bravado completely evaporated. "Boss, I heard—fuck, I heard Thomas had a friend. In Philadelphia. Runs the mob there. Supposed to be ten times stronger than anything we had in New York..."
 
Philadelphia.
 
Of course. Thomas had called in reinforcements. And if these were Philly muscle, we were in serious shit.
 
But I couldn't let my men see that. Couldn't let them see the fear that was trying to claw its way up my throat.
 
"Elijah!" I grabbed his shoulder, spun him to face me. "Get out there. Now. Rally the men. We don't fold, you understand me?"
 
"Wesley, we can't—"
 
"We don't fold!" I shoved him toward the fight. "Move!"
 
He stumbled forward, then found his footing and started running, shouting orders as he went. I took a breath—one breath to center myself—and then I was moving too, sprinting toward the nearest cluster of my men.
 
They were huddled behind an old crane assembly, trading sporadic fire with the Italians but clearly losing ground. When they saw me coming, their faces lit up with something between hope and desperation.
 
"Listen up!" I had to shout to be heard over the gunfire. "Today, we're here for Marcello! We're here for Miles! We're here for every brother who died because of these bastards!" I gestured wildly at the Italians, at the shadows where the Syndicate was still hiding. "I don't care if God himself walks through that door—we fight! You hear me? We fight!"
 
For a moment, nothing happened. Then one of the younger guys—kid couldn't have been more than twenty—let out a wordless roar and popped up from cover, his pistol barking three times in quick succession.
 
It was like a dam breaking. Suddenly everyone was shouting, shooting, the fear transforming into rage and adrenaline. The sound echoed through the warehouse, bouncing off metal walls and concrete floors until it became this primal, overwhelming thing.
 
"Fuck the Italians!"
 
"Kill every Syndicate rat hiding in here!"
 
"For Marcello! For Miles!"
 
The tide of the battle shifted. Not in our favor—the Italians were still too organized, too well-armed—but it equalized. Turned it into the kind of brutal, close-quarters slugfest where numbers and determination mattered as much as training.
 
I threw myself into it without thinking. Ducked behind a massive rusted gear assembly, squeezed off three rounds at an Italian who was trying to flank my position. Missed twice, caught him in the shoulder on the third. He went down screaming.
 
Moved. Always moving. That was the key. Stay still and you were dead. I vaulted over a low wall, landed in a crouch behind a stack of pallets, came up shooting at two more Italians who were advancing on Elijah's position.
 
One of them saw me coming and pivoted, his AR-15 tracking toward me with terrifying speed. I dove sideways, felt bullets chew through the wood where I'd been standing a heartbeat before. Rolled, came up on one knee, put two rounds center mass.
 
He dropped.
 
His partner was already running, shouting something in Italian that sounded like either a prayer or a curse. Probably both.
 
The fight raged on. Minutes blurred together. My arms ached from the recoil. My ears were ringing so badly I could barely hear anything except the constant thunder of gunfire.
 
And then, just when it felt like we'd reached some kind of terrible equilibrium—
 
They came out of the shadows.
 
The Syndicate. The ones we'd thought were hiding, waiting, too scared to fight.
 
They weren't scared. They were waiting.