A dozen Bloods gunmen in black ski masks poured through the smoke-filled casino entrance, moving like a pack of dogs that had been waiting to hunt.
The casino security guards who tried to stand and fight were cut down fast. The ones who dropped their weapons and ran got to keep breathing.
On the far side of the building, Nick and his eleven operators slipped over the perimeter wall without a sound.
They moved in blackout gear -- modified AR-15s with suppressors, tactical sidearms, military-grade plate carriers, and low-profile night vision rigs. No flashy moves. No wasted motion.
Nick's objective was simple: the safe room in the casino manager's office.
Multiple days of unprocessed cash. Easily seven figures.
"Team A holds the floor. Team B with me." Nick's voice came through the bone-conduction sets, flat and quiet.
The squad pushed inside in a standard wedge formation. Sporadic resistance collapsed ahead of them.
Two Crips guards tried to come out of a side door with their guns up. Two suppressed shots. They folded before their boots hit the floor -- close-range double-taps, one each, center-skull.
The team moved through the casino floor without breaking stride.
They worked by the book: corner clearing in pairs, bounding cover, alternating fields of fire. Smooth, textbook CQB discipline. Against ordinary guards, it was overpowering. There was nothing reactive about their movements -- they'd done this kind of work too many times in too many countries to improvise.
One operator dropped to a knee at the manager's office door, pressed a palm-length strip of M112 linear charge against the lock housing and lower hinge, and stepped back.
Crump.
The steel door buckled inward, corners peeling back from the frame like tin foil.
Inside, through the rolling smoke, the casino manager was jammed behind his desk, fumbling fat-fingered stacks of bundled hundred-dollar bills toward a hidden wall panel.
Nick put a single round through the pistol in the man's hand.
The gun spun across the floor. The manager screamed and clutched the bleeding hand to his chest.
Nick pressed the suppressor barrel against the man's sweaty forehead.
"Safe combination. Three seconds."
The man's hands shook so badly he could barely key in the code, but he managed it. Behind a cheap oil painting, the alloy cabinet swung open.
Stacked bricks of banded cash. Gold chains and loose jewelry swept to one side. A rough estimate: close to ten million dollars.
"Pack it in sixty seconds," Nick said over comms.
Two operators shook out large tactical duffels and worked in silence, sweeping the contents off the shelves with the efficiency of men who had done far worse things for far less money.
Nick walked the bags to the vehicles personally, then turned back to Mike.
"Take the haul out. You and your people are done for tonight."
Mike glanced toward the smoke still drifting from the blown door. "What about the armed squad the Crips brought in?"
"That's our department," Nick said. He pulled his balaclava back down. "Stay on comms."
One of the SEALs cracked his neck and grinned. "The boss said they were good. I'm curious."
"Keep making noise," Nick told him. "The Crips need to believe the Bloods are still tearing the place apart." He chambered a fresh round. "We'll be the ones who greet their response squad."
Third Floor.
The Paradise Nightclub, Queens.
"That's what I call a result, Mr. Pembroke!"
Preston Nathaniel Simmons, the leader of the Crips' New York operation, leaned back in a plush chair and bellowed with laughter. He was a broad-shouldered, barrel-necked man whose head looked too small for his body, dressed in a purple velvet suit with a rope of thick gold links hanging to his sternum.
The screams from the alley below hadn't even fully died out.
Across the low table sat a Frenchman.
Bertrand Laroche was lean, blond hair swept back off a high forehead, eyes the pale flat blue of old porcelain. He wore a silver ring on his right hand -- a coiled snake, rubies set where the eyes should be, catching the lamplight like two small coals.
He took a measured sip of single malt Scotch.
"Stray dog with a broken spine," Preston was saying, grinning wide enough to show his gold-capped molars. "Viktor and his whole crew -- ran like rats! With your boys and your intel, Tarasov is finished."
Bertrand didn't laugh. He set down his glass with the precise care of a man who was perpetually slightly bored.
"The victory must be pressed, Preston. Tarasov's military capacity has been exposed as thin. This is exactly the moment to consolidate your position. I can provide additional financing and manpower -- you move on their remaining Brooklyn holdings and--"
"No." Preston's smile vanished. He cut his hand through the air. "No, no, no."
He leaned forward, and the jovial mask dropped away to reveal the sharp, patient street intelligence underneath.
"Know when to stop. Abram's not Viggo. He won't go to the mattresses over a lost operation. But Viktor and his people -- they are dangerous animals. You poke them twice, they bite back."
"We hit the refinery for you. We just broke their raiding party. That's the deal."
He shook his head. "All-out war? Not tonight. Not yet."
Bertrand's eyes cooled.
He stared at Preston with the expression of a man calculating whether a tool was still useful or whether it was time to throw it away.
"Preston," he said, voice still level, still civil, but the warmth stripped entirely out of it. "Hesitation is a round you fire into yourself. Tarasov will not thank you for your restraint -- they will use it to rebuild. A moment of mercy now becomes a blade later. The opportunity--"
The phone on the table shrieked.
Preston snatched it up, still riding his good mood.
It drained from his face in real time.
The color cycled through red, white, gray, and settled on a mottled purple that had nothing to do with his suit.
"What? What did you just say? The Bloods hit the Lucky Seven?!"
His champagne glass hit the floor. The stem shattered. Liquid sprayed across the rug.
"BLOODS! Deshawn, I will SKIN YOU ALIVE!"
He was on his feet, roaring at the phone, chest heaving like a man who had just been sucker-punched.
Then he swung toward Bertrand, and the rage in his eyes had a new element underneath it: suspicion.
"Where are your men, Pembroke? You told me Tarasov was the threat! You told me they were coming HERE! Two million sitting in that safe and your intelligence gave me NOTHING!"
He snatched the pistol from the table.
The barrel came up level with Bertrand's chest.
Preston was breathing hard through his nose. The gold chain swung with the rise and fall of his chest.
"You pay back every cent they take. Every cent."
He inflated the number by at least a million -- force of habit. The Frenchman was clearly rich, and Preston still needed his resources. But he needed Bertrand to understand fear first.
Bertrand did not move.
He looked at the gun barrel with the faint, disconnected curiosity of a man who had been pointed at by better people than this.
Slowly, he reached sideways and lifted the cashmere scarf that had been folded over the sofa armrest. He draped it around his neck with unhurried hands, adjusting the fall of it against his collar.
"It appears," he murmured, more to himself than to Preston, "that there is more than one fox running in New York."
Something shifted behind his eyes. Not alarm. More like recalibration.
"Answer me!" Preston took one step forward. "What the hell are you pretending to think about? MY MONEY IS GONE!"
Bang.
The round punched into the sofa cushion two inches from Bertrand's right hip.
A warning shot. Preston's hand was shaking too much for it to be anything else.
Bertrand looked down at the fresh hole in the upholstery. Then he looked back up at Preston.
The flash of cold intent that passed through his eyes lasted perhaps half a second.
The door blew inward. Four of Bertrand's operators in full combat gear spilled into the room, stacking the entry. Snake rings on every right hand.
Bertrand raised one hand, a single measured gesture. They held.
He stood, straightened his jacket, and looked at Preston with the patient expression of a man about to provide an educational experience.
"I made an error, Preston. I underestimated them." He smiled, and it was the worst kind of smile. "I will correct that. Tarasov will pay for tonight."
He took one step closer.
"But you -- you just fired a weapon at me."
His voice dropped to just above a murmur.
"You understand that I cannot allow that to stand."
The four operators raised their weapons.
"So I will deal with those who show me disrespect first."
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