Anthony and Sergei walked casually toward the heavily guarded front entrance of the nightclub.
The four Bloods enforcers instantly stood up straight, their bloodshot eyes fully alert, their hands firmly gripping the extended magazines of their concealed handguns.
Two of the gangsters, sporting thick dreadlocks and oversized basketball jerseys, immediately clocked the bizarre, highly intimidating duo approaching them.
A devastatingly calm, sharply dressed young boss.
And a massive, terrifyingly fierce Russian brute trailing behind him.
The enforcer with a Bluetooth earpiece had just been informed that two marked NYPD cruisers had quietly parked a block away, seemingly acting as an escort for these two strangers.
The gangsters exchanged highly wary glances. The apparent leader of the door crew, a thug with dyed red tips in his dreads, stepped forward with a blunt clamped firmly between his teeth.
He aggressively blocked Anthony's path, defiantly jutting out his chin.
"Hey, pretty boy. You brought the fucking pigs down here to try and collect protection money from us? Get the fuck lost!"
Anthony stopped perfectly still, his cold, detached gaze slowly sweeping over the four armed men.
"I am looking for Deshawn."
The red-haired thug sneered, blowing a cloud of smoke into Anthony's face. "Our boss is way too busy tonight. Especially with arrogant white devils."
Sergei took exactly half a step forward. His massive frame made the pavement seem to tremble.
The four Bloods violently drew their handguns simultaneously. But Sergei was significantly faster; his massive hands were already firmly wrapped around the grips of the twin pistols holstered beneath his leather jacket.
"Relax, Sergei," Anthony commanded smoothly, raising a single hand to halt his bodyguard.
He looked back at the armed thugs with a profound, terrifying patience in his voice. He sounded exactly like a weary professor instructing a group of exceptionally slow, disobedient students.
"Inform Deshawn that Tarasov is here. If he does not walk out of those doors in exactly sixty seconds, I am going inside to retrieve him."
"And I absolutely loathe waiting in line."
The red-haired thug's pupils contracted slightly.
The name Tarasov carried apocalyptic weight within the New York underworld.
Even though the Bloods had recently become incredibly arrogant due to their sudden influx of French capital, the veteran gangsters still implicitly understood which specific lines they were not supposed to cross.
Those who lacked genuine military strength, yet operated with absolutely no reverence for death, often found themselves dying the fastest.
But street politics dictated they couldn't simply back down and lose face on their own turf.
"I don't give a fuck who you are! This is Bloods territory!" the thug spat violently.
"Get the fuck out of here right now, while you still have your legs—"
His aggressive threat came to an abrupt, violent end.
Because Anthony moved.
One microsecond he was standing completely still two meters away. The next microsecond, he was standing directly inside the thug's personal guard.
Anthony violently seized the thug's gun-wrist with his left hand, torqueing it aggressively upward until the joint made a sickening, incredibly crisp CRACK.
Simultaneously, Anthony drove his right fist brutally into the thug's Adam's apple. It was a perfectly calculated, highly controlled strike—delivering exactly enough kinetic force to crush the man's windpipe and induce rapid suffocation, without instantly killing him.
The thug collapsed onto the wet pavement like a discarded rag doll, desperately clutching his throat and making horrific, wet gasping sounds.
The three remaining enforcers shouted and simultaneously raised their Glocks.
"Nobody fucking move!" Sergei roared, his voice echoing like rolling thunder.
He had flawlessly drawn twin Makarov pistols, the heavy black muzzles aimed directly at the center mass of the remaining guards.
"The first man to twitch a muscle dies."
Despite the threat, one of the younger thugs stared fiercely at Anthony, his finger tightening dangerously on his trigger.
"So what if you got the drop on one of us?! You don't make a move on Bloods territory and walk away! Even if you are one of Tarasov's men..."
The exact millisecond the thug finished his sentence, a faint, nearly invisible flash of light illuminated a rooftop across the street.
Pfft!
Before the thug could even blink, a massive, high-velocity sniper round completely shattered his right bicep, severing the bone and nearly ripping his arm clean off.
"AGH—!"
The thug screamed in absolute agony as his pistol clattered uselessly onto the concrete.
"Sniper! They got a fucking sniper!"
The two remaining, terrified thugs screamed in panic, desperately attempting to backpedal toward the club doors.
Anthony was already closing the distance. He aggressively stepped forward, violently seizing one of the retreating thugs by the wrist and wrenching it sharply downward.
The exact moment the thug bent forward in excruciating pain, Anthony drove his right knee brutally upward into the man's solar plexus with the devastating force of a thunderbolt!
CRACK!
"Vomit—!"
The thug's eyes nearly bulged out of his skull as he violently spewed a mixture of cheap liquor and gastric acid onto the pavement. He collapsed, curling into a tight, agonizing ball like a cooked shrimp.
Anthony fluidly snatched the falling pistol from the air and jammed the hot barrel violently into the mouth of the final, paralyzed guard.
The entire brutal, surgical engagement had concluded in the blink of an eye.
Hearing the commotion outside, several more Bloods enforcers aggressively surged out from the nightclub's interior doors, weapons drawn. Some wielded switchblades, while others racked the slides on stolen handguns.
Angry, chaotic roars and violent threats surged toward Anthony and Sergei like a tidal wave.
"Kill these motherfuckers!"
"Where the hell did this crazy white boy come from?!"
"Light 'em up! Nobody disrespects the set!"
Just as the reinforcements prepared to open fire, Sergei stepped aggressively in front of Anthony, fully prepared to unload his twin Makarovs.
However, before Sergei could fire, the armed gangsters at the front of the mob suddenly began falling to the ground screaming, their kneecaps completely shattered by suppressed fire.
As the remaining gangsters desperately attempted to retreat back into the club in absolute panic, they suddenly realized they were completely surrounded.
Over a dozen heavily armed men, all wearing tactical plainclothes and carrying highly modified, suppressed MAC-10 submachine guns, had smoothly materialized from the shadows, completely blocking their escape routes.
There was a highly trained sniper holding the overwatch, and a dozen lethal PMC operators blocking their rear.
The Bloods enforcers had dealt with violent street thugs before, but they had absolutely never encountered a paramilitary hit squad operating with this level of terrifying, clinical calmness.
A block away, the police sirens suddenly blared to life. The two marked NYPD cruisers slowly rolled out of the dark alleyway and parked aggressively near the edge of the nightclub's perimeter, their blue lights painting the street.
Sitting in the cruiser, Officer Jimmy felt a profound chill run straight down his spine. His heart pounded violently against his ribs as he watched the absolute tactical domination unfolding before him.
It isn't about who currently has the upper hand, Jimmy realized with mounting horror. It's the terrifying fact that Anthony Tarasov literally brought a sniper to a nightclub and ordered him to open fire in the middle of the street!
Is that bastard completely unafraid of dying in the resulting crossfire?!
Anthony expressionlessly scanned the distorted, terrified faces of the surviving gangsters. He completely ignored the dozen gun barrels and gleaming blades still pointed vaguely in his direction.
"If you do not possess the tactical fortitude to actually pull the trigger," Anthony commanded softly, "then get the fuck out of my way."
He violently shoved aside the bleeding thug kneeling in front of him and strode purposefully into the nightclub.
Faced with over a dozen suppressed submachine guns and the terrifying presence of the NYPD outside, even the most violent, arrogant Bloods enforcers swallowed their pride, too terrified to speak.
Inside the cavernous nightclub, the raucous, deafening electronic music continued to pound. The hundreds of civilians dancing on the floor and drinking in the VIP booths had completely failed to hear the suppressed gunfire outside. They remained entirely ignorant of the slaughter at the front door.
They simply could not imagine a scenario where anyone would dare to launch a hostile takeover of a Bloods stronghold.
Anthony stood at the edge of the dance floor, staring blankly at the chaotic, swaying crowd and listening to the deafening, vibrating bass.
Anthony casually raised a single finger.
Sergei immediately raised one of his heavy Makarov pistols.
He didn't aim at the crowd. He aimed directly at the club's vaulted ceiling, specifically targeting an absolutely massive, gaudy crystal chandelier hanging directly over the center of the dance floor.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three deafening, unsuppressed gunshots violently ruptured the air. They sounded like localized thunderclaps, the sheer concussive volume instantly drowning out the pounding electronic music.
The massive crystal chandelier violently shattered. Thousands of razor-sharp shards of glass rained down like lethal hail, tearing into the heads and shoulders of the stunned, screaming crowd below.
Instantly, absolute chaos erupted.
A few seconds later, the DJ desperately killed the music. The heavy bass vanished, replaced entirely by the deafening, terrified screams of hundreds of panicking civilians.
Every single person in the room—from the hardened Bloods enforcers to the terrified college students—stared in absolute, paralyzed horror at the massive Russian brute standing at the edge of the floor, his smoking pistol still aimed at the ceiling. He looked like an avatar of death.
"My boss has an announcement," Sergei rumbled.
He slowly lowered the smoking pistol. His cold, dead eyes swept menacingly over the sea of shocked, terrified faces.
His lethal gaze finally settled squarely on the entrance to the dimly lit, heavily guarded VIP corridor situated deep within the rear of the club.
"We are looking for Deshawn. Bring him out here."
"Now."
The heavy, suffocating silence that followed lasted for exactly ten seconds.
Every single second felt like a grueling eternity.
Anthony calmly walked over and sat down in an empty, luxurious VIP booth. Sergei solicitously picked up a clean crystal glass from the table, casually rinsed it with premium whiskey, and poured his boss a fresh drink.
Tom and his plainclothes operators formed a tight, heavily armed perimeter around the booth, their suppressed MAC-10s tracking aggressively over the surrounding crowd.
Outside, the heavy, chaotic sound of boots echoed. Dozens of furious Bloods reinforcements, armed with machetes and cheap handguns, rushed in from the surrounding alleys, completely barricading the main entrances to the club.
A few moments later, a group of roughly ten heavily armed men slowly descended the grand staircase from the second-floor VIP lounge.
They were all wearing signature red bandanas. They were carrying heavy weaponry—machetes, pump-action shotguns, and stolen AK-47s.
The leader of the group was a short, incredibly muscular Black man.
He was wearing an open, offensively bright purple velvet suit, completely exposing his heavily muscled chest and torso, which were entirely covered in menacing, gang-related tattoos.
A blood-dripping dagger. A coiled, striking viper. A twisted, screaming skull.
A profound, sickeningly deep scar ran diagonally across his face. It started at his left temple, carved violently across his nose, and ended deep in his right cheek, making his entire visage look twisted and demonic.
His eyes were incredibly small, constantly darting around the room. His sinister, hateful gaze immediately locked onto Anthony.
He casually held a sawed-off Remington 870 pump-action shotgun in his right hand.
Trailing closely behind him were four massive, elite bodyguards whose imposing physical bulk rivaled even Sergei's. They exuded a raw, feral aura of street-level violence.
The four bodyguards instantly raised their MAC-10s, aiming the muzzles directly at Anthony's chest.
"Tarasov?" Deshawn sneered, staring intensely at the young Russian. "You ain't Abram. And you sure as hell ain't Aurelio."
"Who the fuck do you think you are, kid? What gives you the delusion that you have the right to demand an audience with me? And who the fuck gave you the authority to start breaking bones on my territory?!"
"Even when your crazy-ass daddy, Viggo, was still breathing, he didn't possess the balls to run wild in my club! Do you honestly believe I won't blow your fucking head off right now?!"
Anthony calmly raised a hand, physically stopping Sergei from raising his weapons. He locked eyes with the furious gang leader.
"Deshawn, if you genuinely possessed the tactical desire to initiate a full-scale war tonight, you wouldn't have bothered walking down those stairs to talk. So drop the tough-guy act and stop pretending you possess the sheer nerve required to execute me."
Anthony lazily pulled a cigarette from his silver case.
Sergei immediately stepped forward and lit it.
Anthony exhaled a slow, calm stream of grey smoke and casually pointed to the empty leather seat across the table. "We have three options tonight, Deshawn. Either we sit down like civilized men and have a conversation. Or you attempt to kill me. Or I definitively kill you."
"I heard a rumor you were completely out of your mind," Anthony continued, leaning forward. "Well, I happen to be quite the psychopath myself. So, how about a wager..."
Anthony smiled brilliantly.
"Why don't you order your men to fire the first shot?"
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