Chapter 5 - The Siege of Long Island
At 2:00 AM, a heavy thunderstorm rolled over Long Island. Lightning lit up the sky, followed by deafening cracks of thunder that shook the windows of the DeLuca estate.
Inside the mansion, the guards were tense. Rain beat violently against the glass, making it impossible to see beyond the floodlights.
Suddenly, every light in the mansion flickered once, twice, and went completely black.
"What happened?!" Vincent yelled from the second-floor balcony. "Where are the generators?!"
"The main power grid was cut from the outside!" a guard shouted back from the darkness. "The backup generators aren't kicking in!"
Down in the basement, beneath the flooded wine racks, a heavy iron hatch slowly creaked open.
Lorenzo DeLuca stepped out into the dark cellar, wearing night-vision goggles, a silent tactical submachine gun slung across his chest. Behind him came Marcus and Anthony, moving like silent phantoms through the dark.
Lorenzo looked at the iron chair sitting in the middle of the room—the very chair where he had been tied up weeks ago. The cut plastic ties still lay on the floor beside a tiny piece of broken pink plastic.
Lorenzo’s eyes hardened.
"Marcus, take the upper floor," Lorenzo ordered quietly. "Anthony, clear the security room. Leave Vincent to me."
"Understood," Marcus whispered, disappearing into the shadows of the staircase.
Upstairs, chaos erupted.
The mercenaries, stripped of their night-vision capabilities by Daniel's signal jammers, panicked as shadows seemed to move against them. Silent takedowns echoed through the grand hallways. Guards fell one by one without a single alarm being raised.
Vincent stood inside Lorenzo’s master study, holding a heavy revolver, his back pressed against the mahogany bookcase. His chest heaved with terrified breaths.
THUD.
The body of his chief security officer hit the heavy oak door from the outside, then slid down onto the floor.
Silence returned to the hallway.
Vincent’s hands shook so violently he could barely hold his gun. "Who's there?! I'll shoot! I swear to God I'll shoot!"
The heavy oak doors slowly swung open.
A flash of lightning illuminated the doorway.
Lorenzo stood there, his shadow stretching long and dark across the Persian rug. He stepped into the room, tossing his submachine gun onto the couch, leaving himself completely unarmed.
"It's just you and me, Vincent," Lorenzo said, his voice ringing with absolute authority. "No guards. No mercenaries. Just the man who built this empire, and the coward who tried to steal it."
Vincent stared at him, his terror suddenly turning into a desperate, cornered rage.
"You think you're a god, don't you?!" Vincent shrieked, raising his revolver with both hands. "You think you can rule this city forever! I did all the work! I managed the books! I took the risks! And you treated me like a servant!"
"I treated you like a brother," Lorenzo corrected coldly, taking a step forward. "I gave you my trust. And you sold it for fifty million dollars and a chair you aren't big enough to fill."
"Die!" Vincent screamed, pulling the trigger.
CLICK.
The hammer fell on an empty chamber.
Vincent gasped in terror, frantically pulling the trigger again and again. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.
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"Daniel emptied your sidearm's magazine through the local remote relay two minutes ago," Lorenzo said calmly, stepping closer. "You never did pay attention to electronic security, did you?"
Vincent threw the empty gun at Lorenzo’s head. Lorenzo casually dodged it, stepped forward, and grabbed Vincent by the throat, slamming him violently against the marble fireplace.
