Chapter 23 - Blood on the Hudson
The sound of shattering glass tore through the rainy midnight air above the West Side Highway.
Vincent’s armored Maybach, flanked by two black Cadillac Escalades, roared down the slick tarmac at ninety miles per hour. Behind them, through the torrential downpour, the headlights of three blacked-out Mercedes G-Wagons surged like hunting sharks, their high beams blinding in the rearview mirrors.
"Hostiles flanking on the right!" Luca yelled from the front passenger seat, racking the slide of an MPX submachine gun. "They aren't mafia soldiers, Boss! They're Spetsnaz contractors! They're carrying RPGs!"
"Ruby, get down on the floorboards!" Vincent commanded, his left hand gripping the steering wheel as he weaved through late-night traffic, forcing a yellow cab off onto the shoulder.
Ruby didn't cower. She crouched low between the seats, unzipping a tactical duffel bag resting beside her boots. Her hands moved with terrifying precision, assembling a compact suppressed FN P90 submachine gun—a weapon Vincent had trained her to strip and clean since she was ten years old.
"They cut off the tunnel entrance!" Ruby reported, glancing at the real-time satellite display mounted on the dash. "There's a roadblock ahead at the 14th Street exit. Concrete barriers and heavy machine guns!"
*"Brace!"* Vincent roared.
A rocket-propelled grenade streaked out of the lead G-Wagon. It missed the Maybach by inches, detonating against the rear Escalade. The massive SUV exploded into an airborne fireball, flipping three times across the median and showering the highway with twisted metal and flaming debris.
The shockwave slammed into the Maybach, sending the vehicle into a violent fishtail. Vincent wrestled the wheel, tires screaming against the wet asphalt, smoke billowing from the wheel wells as he regained control.
The lead G-Wagon pulled alongside the Maybach's passenger side. The tinted window slid down, revealing a masked mercenary wielding an automatic shotgun loaded with steel-core slugs aimed squarely at Vincent's head.
Luca kicked open his door against the wind shear, firing a burst, but a blast from the shotgun caught Luca in the shoulder, throwing him back inside, gasping in pain.
Before the shooter could fire a second round, Ruby stood up in the center console.
Her eyes were dead, focused, stripped of fear. She raised the P90, braced the stock against her collarbone, and squeezed the trigger.
A burst of five armor-piercing 5.7mm rounds tore through the mercenary’s visor. The man collapsed back inside his cabin, his dead weight slumping onto the steering wheel. The G-Wagon violently jerked right, smashing through the highway’s guardrail, plummeting forty feet into the churning, icy waters of the Hudson River below.
Vincent glanced in the rearview mirror at his daughter. Her shoulder was bruised from the recoil, her knuckles white, but her breath was controlled.
"Good shot, Donna Ruby," Vincent growled, his pride warring with the agony of knowing her innocence was forever lost.
"We have to clear the exit," Ruby said, racking a fresh magazine. "They have Mom on an offshore vessel. If we don't breach their communication hub in Chelsea before dawn, they will sever her connection."
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Vincent punched the nitro booster installed beneath the dash. The twin-turbo V12 engine shrieked like an enraged beast, ramming through the makeshift roadblock in a shower of sparks and shattered concrete.
***
