Chapter 5 - A VIPER AT THE DINING TABLE
Gabriel moved before Frank Vane could pull his hand from his trench coat.
It was not an act of blinded rage; it was the calculated, surgical violence Gabriel had perfected over a decade of surviving on Boston’s streets.
Gabriel stepped inside Frank’s reach, slamming his left palm upward into the base of Frank’s chin, snapping the enforcer’s head back against the concrete wall with a sickening crack. With his right hand, Gabriel gripped Frank’s right wrist through the heavy wool of the trench coat, twisting the arm inward until the radius bone snapped with the sound of dry pine splintering.
Frank roared in agony, his suppressed Glock clattering out of his paralyzed fingers and sliding across the wet concrete.
"Gabriel!" Dominic shouted, wheeling around on the second step of the stairs, his silver hair flying wild. "What the hell are you doing?! Have you lost your mind?!"
Gabriel didn't answer. He drove his knee into Frank’s liver, folding the six-foot-four enforcer in half. As Frank dropped toward the floor, Gabriel caught him by the throat, spinning him around and smashing his face into the heavy steel door of the interrogation room.
Blood sprayed across the painted metal.
Gabriel reached down, scooped up Frank’s suppressed nine-millimeter from the floor, and pressed the hot barrel directly beneath Dominic’s left eye before the older man could take another breath.
Dominic froze on the stairs, his chest heaving, his expensive camel-hair coat splattered with his bodyguard's blood.
"You’re making a mistake, nephew," Dominic hissed, though the tremble in his lower lip betrayed him. "You pull that trigger, and the entire Mercer syndicate fractures before sunrise. Every capo from Southie to Revere will hunt you down."
"The syndicate doesn't answer to a poisoner," Gabriel whispered.
He reached into his vest with his free hand, pulled out his satellite phone, and pressed play on the audio file.
Anthony’s dying words echoed through the narrow concrete stairwell.
*“...Dominic found out about the offshore ledgers. He knows I traced the fentanyl shipments through Pier 42... Dad didn't die of heart failure, Gabe. Dominic poisoned his digitalis prescription...”*
Dominic’s face drained of every drop of color. The aristocratic arrogance, the senator-like composure, the grandfatherly pity—all of it dissolved into a pathetic, gray terror.
"Anthony... Anthony was sick," Dominic stammered, his eyes darting frantically between Gabriel’s cold, dead stare and the gun barrel pressed against his cheek. "He was paranoid, Gabriel! The pressure of the family was breaking him! He was hallucinating conspiracies!"
"And Frank?" Gabriel whispered, pressing the barrel harder until the metal indented Dominic’s flesh. "Was Frank hallucinating when he stood over Anthony’s burning car and told his hit squad that I authorized the hit?"
Dominic swallowed hard. His breath came fast and shallow, smelling of expensive scotch and raw fear.
On the floor, Frank groaned, spitting out three broken teeth and a pool of dark blood. "Shoot him, Dominic... he’s got the whole ledger... he knows..."
"Shut up, Frank!" Dominic screamed.
Suddenly, a heavy thud vibrated through the floorboards above them.
The sound of shattering glass and heavy tactical boots came echoing down from the estate’s main foyer.
Gabriel’s radio clipped to his shoulder squawked with static. A frantic voice broke through the speaker: *"Boss! Perimeter breach! Black SUVs just rammed the front gates! They’re not our guys—they've got tactical gear, night vision, full autos! They’re wiping out the house guards!"*
Dominic’s terror vanished, replaced by a sick, desperate grin. Blood welled at the corner of his eye where the gun barrel bit in, but he started to laugh—a wheezing, triumphant rattle.
"You think I came here alone, Gabriel?" Dominic spat. "You think I’d walk into your house without an insurance policy? I brought the cleanup crew. The same crew that took care of Anthony on Commercial Street. By morning, the papers will say Gabriel Mercer had a psychotic break, killed his uncle and his loyal bodyguard, and died in a tragic house fire."
"You brought mercenaries to my home," Gabriel said calmly.
"I brought professionals," Dominic hissed. "Now drop the gun, nephew. Sign over Anthony’s trusts, tell me where you hid the brat, and maybe I’ll let you bleed out in an alley instead of burning you alive in this basement."
Gabriel didn't lower the weapon.
Instead, he smiled. It was a cold, empty crescent that made Dominic’s laughter die instantly in his throat.
"You forgot one thing, Uncle."
"What?"
"Anthony wasn't the only one who kept secrets."
Gabriel pulled the trigger.
The suppressed round didn't hit Dominic. It punched straight through Frank Vane’s kneecap on the floor.
Frank shrieked, thrashing against the concrete.
Gabriel grabbed Dominic by the collar of his expensive coat, hauled him down the stairs like a sack of wet laundry, and dragged him toward the utility closet.
Gabriel tapped the keypad beside the breaker box. The concealed pneumatic door hissed open.
Elena Vance stood in the darkness, holding Noah against her chest with one arm, while in her right hand she held Evan’s backup tactical shotgun, leveled dead-center at Dominic’s chest.
Dominic’s jaw dropped. "You..."
"Dominic," Elena said, her amber eyes ice-cold beneath her bruised brow. "You look older than Isabel said you were."
"Evan," Gabriel commanded, stepping into the safe room and hurling Dominic onto the concrete floor. "Seal the blast door. Activate the ventilation cutoffs."
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Evan slammed the control switch. The four-inch steel blast door slid shut with the thunderous roar of hydraulics, locking them into the concrete belly of the earth just as the first heavy explosion rocked the mansion above.
***
