Chapter 4 - The Final Threat
By the time I returned to the Tribeca safe house that evening, the storm had escalated into a torrential downpour. I walked out of the private elevator, my shoulders heavy with exhaustion, eager to finally hold my family in peace.
But the moment the doors parted, I knew something was wrong.
The air smelled of ozone and discharged gunpowder. The heavy oak door to the penthouse was splintered.
“Wesley!” I roared, drawing my weapon and sprinting down the hallway.
I kicked the broken door open, sweeping the room. The luxury living room was a war zone. Shattered glass covered the floor. Three heavily armed mercenaries wearing tactical gear lay unconscious, zip-tied to the marble columns, bleeding heavily.
Wesley was leaning against the kitchen island, wrapping a bloody bandage around his forearm, breathing heavily. Behind him, Mave was huddled in the corner of the pantry, clutching a terrified but unharmed Posie to her chest.
“Status!” I shouted, rushing over to Mave and dropping to my knees, checking her and my daughter for injuries.
“We’re okay, Garrett,” Mave sobbed, burying her face in my neck while Posie clung to my suit lapel. “They tried to breach the windows. Wesley stopped them.”
“The matriarch hired an outside crew, boss,” Wesley grunted, tightening the tourniquet on his arm. “She scraped together whatever untraceable cash she had left and sent a ghost team to kidnap the kid. They didn't expect us to have military-grade countermeasures. We neutralized them. But they had a burner phone. She’s waiting for a call.”
I stood up, the absolute limits of my mercy permanently shattered. I walked over to the lead mercenary, pulled the burner phone from his tactical vest, and hit the redial button.
My mother answered on the first ring. “Do you have the child?” she asked, her voice trembling with frantic desperation.
“They failed, Evelyn,” I said, my voice echoing with the finality of a graveyard.
I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.
“Garrett, please,” she begged, all her aristocratic pride completely gone, replaced by the pathetic whimpering of a defeated monster. “I have nothing. The bank accounts are frozen. The capos won't answer my calls. The Ashfords have put a bounty on my head. I’m trapped in the compound. Please, you are my son. Save me.”
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“You lost the right to call me your son the day you put a gun to my pregnant wife's head,” I answered coldly. “I am not going to kill you, Evelyn. Death is too quick. I am going to let you live in the hell you created. I have stripped your name from the syndicate registry. You are no longer a Hail. You are officially exiled from New York. If I ever see your face again, if you ever breathe in the same city as my daughter, I will let Marcus Ashford collect his bounty.”
I crushed the burner phone under the heel of my shoe, severing my mother from my life forever. I turned back to Mave, who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, holding Posie. I dropped my weapon onto the counter, walked over, and wrapped my arms around my entire world. The empire was purged. The shadows were gone. We were finally safe.
