Chapter 15 - The Ballroom of Broken Bones
The front doors of the mansion were unlatched. As Gabriel pushed them open, the hinges groaned like dying animals.
The vast grand foyer was a graveyard of opulence. The crystal chandelier that had once dazzled New York’s elite hung shattered across the marble floor, its million-dollar crystals crushed into powdered glass. The air was thick with mildew, pigeon droppings, and the unmistakable scent of expensive Cuban cigar smoke.
Julian Blackwood was sitting on an upturned wooden crate in the center of the vast ballroom, a lit Cohiba between his teeth.
He was in his late fifties, tall, lean, with the same patrician cheekbones and ruthless silver-blue eyes as Everett. But unlike Everett, Julian possessed the wiry, predatory posture of an assassin. Resting across his knees was a customized short-barrel carbine.
"You took your time, Gabriel," Julian said, his voice echoing off the peeling gilded walls. "I thought military training taught you punctuality."
Gabriel stepped into the center of the ballroom, his boots crunching over the carpet of crushed crystal. He held his Glock at his side, low and ready.
"You made a mistake, Julian," Gabriel said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "You should have stayed dead in Maine."
Julian chuckled, exhaling a thick plume of blue smoke toward the water-damaged ceiling. "And let you dismantle a multi-billion-dollar dynasty? Let you put my sister in an orange jumpsuit eating processed slop with degenerates? Marlene was a foolish woman, I admit. Forcing that little bastard child of yours to eat from the dog bowls in the basement... that was crude. Petty. Marlene lacked sophistication."
Julian stood up, resting the carbine casually in the crook of his elbow.
"I don't care about your daughter, Gabriel. I don't care about Elena’s pathetic moral crusade. I care about the bearer bonds. That money was my retirement. It was built by my blood. You give me the key, and I will let you take the mutt and disappear to South America. Refuse, and I will hang you from the mezzanine by piano wire, and then I will search the woods until I find her."
Gabriel stared into Julian’s cold, dead eyes. A dark, terrifying smile crept across Gabriel’s face.
"You really don't know who I am, do you, Julian?"
Julian frowned slightly, his fingers tightening on the trigger guard.
"You think I was just Elena's weak, heartbroken husband who got lucky with a hidden trash can and a federal indictment," Gabriel took a slow step forward. "You forgot what my unit did in Fallujah. We didn't clear buildings, Julian. We cleared tunnels. We lived in the dark with rats and monsters. And compared to the men I’ve buried... you are just an old man with stolen silver."
Before Julian could raise the carbine, Gabriel’s left hand snapped up from his pocket.
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A high-intensity military flashbang grenade arced through the air, detonating directly between them with a blinding, sun-white flash and a concussive roar of 170 decibels.
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