Chapter 2 - The Traitor at the Right Hand
The rain fell like sheets of cold iron.
Dominic didn't blink.
He handed the microfilm to me.
“Keep it safe, Sylvie.”
He stepped through the shattered terrace threshold.
Water dripped from his black hair onto the marble floor.
Forty capos backed away, clearing a path.
At the head of the banquet table sat Henri De Winter.
Sixty years old.
Silver hair.
A bespoke tuxedo with diamond cufflinks.
His hand was still tucked inside his breast pocket.
“Dominic,” Henri said smoothly.
“My daughter is hysterical. Let us sign the treaty and handle domestic issues
later.”
Dominic stopped five paces away.
“Gabriel didn't crash in a fog, Henri.”
The dining room went dead silent.
A capo set his champagne glass down with a trembling hand.
“Gabriel was murdered over the Pyrenees,” Dominic continued.
His voice was a low, rolling growl.
“By a surface-to-air missile carrying the De Winter arms stamp.”
Henri’s polite smile dissolved into cold arrogance.
“Your brother was a sentimental fool, Dominic. He wanted to audit our shipping
containers. He wanted to report our black-market weapons to Interpol.”
Henri slowly pulled his hand from his jacket.
He wasn't holding a pen.
He held a silver wireless detonator.
“You think you run this fortress, boy?” Henri sneered.
“I have twenty mercenaries disguised as your catering staff. And your
sister-in-law's estate is already surrounded.”
From the service entrance, six waiters pulled suppressed submachine guns from
under their aprons.
The forty capos dove under the mahogany tables.
Henri thumbed the switch on the detonator.
“Die like your brother, Moreau.”
BANG!
Dominic didn't draw from his holster.
He fired a pocket pistol straight through the fabric of his tuxedo coat.
The heavy hollow-point bullet shattered Henri’s wrist.
May you like
The detonator flew across the room, skittering across the marble.
Gunfire erupted.
