Chapter 17 - The Wolves at the Gate
Forty-eight hours later, the final storm arrived.
The news broadcasts on the kitchen radio were hysterical. The Philadelphia Police Commissioner had declared a state of emergency; federal agents had surrounded the downtown financial district; and the governor was threatening to deploy the National Guard to secure the ports.
Ruslan was cornered. His bank accounts had been frozen by Roman’s financial contacts, his shipping containers had been seized at the docks, and his safehouses were burning across three counties.
A cornered wolf does not look for an escape route; it looks for the throat of the hunter.
At 3:00 PM on New Year’s Eve, a convoy of six armored utility trucks smashed through the exterior stone gates of Ravenwood Estate, not bothering to avoid the security traps. Ruslan had brought sixty men—mercenaries, cartel castaways, and the remaining die-hard enforcers of the Moretti family.
They weren’t here to capture the estate.
They had mounted heavy fifty-caliber machine guns on the beds of the trucks. They were here to level Ravenwood to the ground, slaughter everyone inside, and burn the evidence in the snow.
The first volley of heavy caliber fire tore through the grand facade of the mansion, obliterating the marble pillars, shattering thirty antique windows, and turning the grand ballroom into a swirling storm of wood splinters and shredded tapestries.
“To the basement! Everyone to the reinforced cellar!” Dante’s voice screamed over the intercom system.
I didn't run to the cellar.
I stood in the kitchen pantry, methodically loading twelve-gauge copper-plated buckshot shells into a heavy Remington shotgun Bruno had placed in my hands two hours earlier.
Next to me stood Walter Briggs.
Roman had brought Walter to Ravenwood twelve hours before the attack, knowing that South Philly was no longer safe. The old seventy-three-year-old veteran was wearing a warm wool sweater, his eyes clear, his hands remarkably steady as he racked the slide on an M14 rifle he had pulled from Roman’s tactical armory.
“I told you that bus shelter was bad luck, Maggie,” Walter chuckled softly, his voice devoid of fear.
“Shut up and watch the rear loading dock, Walter,” I replied, checking the safety on my shotgun. “If anyone comes through that door without a kitchen pass, put a hole in them.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Upstairs, the house was vibrating with the roar of a full-scale military battle. Roman, Vincent (propped up against a tactical crate with his abdomen taped), and twenty of our best men were returning fire from the reinforced second-story parapets, raining precision rifle fire down onto the armored trucks in the courtyard.
The noise was deafening—a continuous, rhythmic roar of explosions, shattering masonry, and screaming men.
Then came the sound I was waiting for.
*THUMP.*
The reinforced steel emergency hatch in the walk-in root cellar—the one that connected to the old Victorian coal tunnels beneath the estate—shook under the impact of a hydraulic jack.
Ruslan hadn't just attacked the front gates. He had used the ancient maintenance tunnels from the woods to bypass the perimeter guards and strike straight into the soft underbelly of the mansion.
May you like
Into my kitchen.
***