Chapter 15 - The Fall of Jimmy Cole
Adrian didn't draw a gun; he closed the ten-foot distance like a silverback lunging through the storm.
*BANG!*
Jimmy's bullet grazed Adrian's ribcage, tearing through his vest and leaving a scorching furrow of blood, but Adrian didn't flinch. He crashed into Jimmy, slamming the traitor against a marble fountain. The heavy stone cracked under the impact.
Jimmy shrieked as Adrian's left hand locked around his throat, pinning him like an insect. With his right hand, Adrian wrenched the revolver from Jimmy’s grip, snapping his wrist with a sharp, sickening *CRACK*.
Jimmy dropped the gun, howling in agony. "Adrian! Wait! Please! We were brothers! Seven years!"
"Brothers don't point guns at mothers," Adrian snarled, his voice vibrating with absolute fury.
He drove a devastating punch into Jimmy’s ribs, shattering them, then dragged the choking traitor to his knees in the bloody snow. Adrian picked up the dropped revolver, pressing the freezing steel barrel directly against Jimmy Cole’s forehead.
"Who in Boston authorized the hit?" Adrian demanded, his breath steaming in the frigid air. "Names. Give me the names or I let Marcus feed you to the bay."
Jimmy was weeping now, blood bubbling from his split lips. "Declan... Declan O’Connor! He runs the Southie mob now! He put up the bounty! He's waiting at the rail yard outside Portsmouth with forty men for the extraction!"
"Is that all?" Adrian asked coldly.
"Yes! I swear on my mother’s soul! Just let me walk, Adrian! I’ll leave the country!"
Clara stepped forward, standing in the falling snow beside Adrian. She looked down at the man who had brought terror to her home, who had threatened to butcher her son for blood money.
"Julian lied to me," Clara said, her voice steady and clear as church bells in winter. "Julian brought this filth to our doorstep. But my son is innocent. And you brought a war to an innocent child."
Jimmy looked up at Clara, pleading. "Clara, please, tell him—"
Adrian didn't wait for her to answer. He didn't want Clara to have blood on her conscience.
*BANG.*
The gunshot echoed once across the frozen courtyard, then died into the howling gale. Jimmy Cole collapsed limp into the snow, his eyes staring blankly up at the stormy sky.
Adrian lowered the weapon and let it drop into the crimson-stained drifts. He swayed slightly, the exhaustion and loss of blood finally catching up to his towering frame.
Clara rushed to his side, catching him before he could fall, throwing his heavy arm over her shoulder. "Adrian! You're bleeding!"
"I'm fine," he breathed, though his face was gray. "We have to move. The manor's gas mains were ruptured during the breach. The whole place is going to level in five minutes."
Ten minutes later, Clara, Adrian, and Marcus—who was barely conscious—climbed into a rugged, mud-splattered four-wheel-drive SUV hidden inside the underground tunnel system beneath the estate. Leo sat in the back between Marcus and a pile of medical supplies, holding tight to Clara's sweater.
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As the SUV roared out of the hidden hillside exit two miles down the mountain road, a massive, fiery explosion illuminated the rear-view mirror. Blackwood Manor blossomed into a towering fireball, consuming five generations of Hale dynasty history in a roaring inferno of orange and black.
Adrian didn't look back. His eyes were fixed on the treacherous, snow-covered highway leading north into the dark spine of the White Mountains.
