Chapter 19 - Blood on the Baccarat Table
Before Cassian could process the words, the massive crystal chandelier directly above the ballroom floor erupted in a deafening shower of sparks, shattered crystal, and concussive thunder.
The primary power grid of the St. Regis cut out instantly, plunging the opulent hall into pitch-black darkness.
Screams of unbridled terror tore through the masked crowd. The sound of heavy bodies colliding in panic echoed across the marble floors.
Sylvester moved with terrifying, instantaneous lethality.
Without needing sight, his senses honed by decades of warfare, Sylvester lunged forward. His left hand whipped out, clamping around the wrist of the enforcer to his right. With a savage twist, he snapped the man’s radius and ulna like dry twigs, stripping the suppressed Glock 19 from the guard's grip before the man even hit the floor.
In the dark, emergency red tactical floodlights bathed the room in a bloody, surreal crimson glow.
Cassian stumbled back, his eyes wide with horror as he clawed for the radio on his belt. "Guards! Kill him! Kill him now!"
Two Obsidian Veil operatives raised automatic rifles, but Sylvester didn't fire at them. Instead, he grabbed the second guard by his lapels, using the massive man as a human shield. A spray of 9mm rounds ripped through the enforcer's chest in a flurry of muffled thuds.
Sylvester shoved the dead weight forward into the firing line, closing the distance in two explosive strides. He drove the heel of his combat palm into the first shooter's chin, snapping the man's neck backward with a sickening crack, then spun, driving the seized Glock’s slide directly into the temple of the second operative, dropping him instantly in a pool of expanding crimson.
Across the perimeter of the grand ballroom, the decorative mirrors lining the walls shattered inward.
Through the pulverized glass vaulted twelve figures clad in matte-black combat gear, night-vision visors glowing green—Julian’s breach team. They had scaled the building’s exterior façade, riding pneumatic grappling lines straight through the high-altitude banquet windows.
"Clear the floor!" Julian’s voice boomed through an amplified tactical megaphone. "Consortium members, stay down or be eradicated!"
The ballroom devolved into a shooting gallery of high-stakes violence. High Consortium security attempted to return fire, but Julian’s team executed synchronized double-taps with surgical, merciless precision. Shell casings rained down like brass hail across the baccarat tables and champagne buckets.
Cassian turned and sprinted toward the private service elevator at the rear of the ballroom, his white tuxedo stained with the blood of his fallen guards.
"Sylvester!" Cassian screamed hysterically as he slapped his security pass against the elevator sensor. "If I die, your daughter dies! You can't touch me!"
Sylvester didn't run. He walked.
He moved through the chaos like an ancient specter of death, his skull mask gleaming beneath the red emergency lights. He stepped over the twitching bodies of elite mercenaries without looking down, discarding the empty Glock and drawing his tactical knife from beneath his coat.
Cassian scrambled into the elevator, frantic fingers punching the button for the penthouse vault. The heavy brass doors began to slide shut.
A massive, black-gloved hand caught the edge of the bronze door.
The heavy hydraulic mechanism groaned, fighting against the inhuman, mechanical strength of Sylvester Vance. With a single, ferocious heave, Sylvester forced the doors back open and stepped into the elevator cabin.
Cassian drew a gold-plated derringer from his vest, his hands shaking violently as he aimed it square at Sylvester’s chest.
"Stay back! I swear to God, Sylvester, my pulse! Look at the monitor!" Cassian shrieked, thrusting his left wrist forward, where the digital display showed his heart rate climbing rapidly: 178... 182... 189...
Sylvester didn't flinch. In one lightning-fast motion, he deflected Cassian’s gun arm upward. The derringer fired, the bullet embedding harmlessly into the elevator's reinforced ceiling.
With his other hand, Sylvester drove the tip of his tactical combat knife straight through Cassian’s left forearm, pinning his wrist against the elevator’s oak paneling.
Cassian shrieked in agony, blood pouring down his sleeve. "It’s going to hit two hundred! The gas! The gas will release!"
"It won't," Sylvester whispered, stepping so close that Cassian could smell the cordite and cold mountain air radiating from his tuxedo.
Sylvester reached up, slowly removing the crowned skull mask and tossing it to the floor. His slate-gray eyes burned into Cassian's soul with an intensity that froze the screaming man's blood.
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"Because you're going to give me the abort code, Cassian," Sylvester said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "Or I will sever the nerves in your spine one by one, keeping your heart beating at exactly seventy-two beats per minute for the next three days while you watch me peel the flesh from your fingers."
***
