Chapter 5 - The Trap Springs Left
The warehouse exploded—not from the crates in the center, but from the perimeter walls where Rostova’s men had planted breaching charges. The concussive wave threw Frank and his men to the floor, their weapons skittering away across the slick concrete as plaster and metal fragments rained down like hail.
Cassandra didn't freeze. She had anticipated the ambush the moment she noticed the lack of a secondary security loop outside. She threw herself into a hard dive to the left, rolling beneath the heavy iron frame of a forklift just as a hail of 5.45mm rounds chewed through the concrete where she had been standing a split second before.
"Frank! Get your men behind the steel containers!" Cass yelled into her comms, but the static was deafening. The explosion had triggered a localized jammer.
One of Marcus’s men, a young kid named Jimmy, panicked. He stood up, trying to fire his submachine gun toward the catwalk, but a three-round burst from Rostova’s personal guard caught him in the chest, lifting him off his feet and slamming him dead against the warehouse floor.
"Damn it," Cass growled.
She pulled a flashbang from her vest, pulled the pin with her teeth, and cooked it for exactly one second before tossing it over the forklift toward the center aisle where three Russian soldiers were advancing.
The blast was blinding, a white-hot detonation that shattered the remaining windows of the warehouse. The soldiers screamed, clutching their eyes and ears as their weapons fired wildly into the ceiling.
Cass rose from her cover like a ghost from a grave. She moved through the smoke with surgical precision. Three shots from her Glock—each one finding the soft tissue beneath the tactical helmets of the blinded men. They fell in a neat row, their blood mixing with the rainwater leaking through the shattered roof.
She looked up at the catwalk. Rostova was gone. He had already retreated toward the rear exit that led to the docks where the ship was docked.
"Frank, take the survivors and get out!" Cass shouted, reloading her weapon with a practiced, fluid motion. "The thermite is set to a remote trigger on my vest. When I’m clear, I’m burning this place to the ground!"
"What about you?" Frank yelled back, his face smeared with soot and blood as he dragged one of his wounded partners toward the side door.
"I have a five-year-old receipt to collect," Cass said, her eyes fixing on the dark emergency exit at the back of the building.
She sprinted through the smoke, her boots pounding against the concrete as she pursued the man who had stolen her life in Prague. She burst through the rear exit out into the driving rain, the cold air hitting her face like a slap.
The dock was empty except for a single luxury yacht tied to the pier beside the massive container ship. The engines were already roaring, the twin propellers churning the black harbor water into white foam.
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Rostova was standing on the aft deck, looking back at the warehouse. When he saw Cass emerge from the dark doorway, his smile returned, wider and more venomous than before.
"Too late, Cassandra!" he shouted over the roar of the engines. "The Vicari family has already fallen. Marcus Castellano is dead by now. You saved the wrong man!"
