22. Leon
22
LEON
T he Cartel’s blood seeps into Brooklyn’s streets like a stain that refuses to lift.
After four months, even the local broadcasters are getting wind of “extensive gang activity”, warning civilians to stay home at night, suggesting curfews for their own safety.
I have no interest in civilians. I have no interest in the Cartel’s goons either.
The only blood I long for is Amos Rubios.
I’ve turned the borough into a chessboard, every block a battleground, every move calculated to deliver maximum pain.
They thought the explosion would cripple us. They were wrong. I prove it to them every time they seek us out, every time I annihilate everything in my path.
They brought this violence on themselves the second they attacked my family.
I don’t stop. I don’t sleep. I live in the Guild’s warehouse, where we’ve set up a war office that can accommodate the combined forces of both Teo’s men and mine.
Teo sits in the corner, surrounded by monitors, tapping away, looking at security feeds and encrypted servers. His knack for digital warfare is unmatched, and he finds the cracks in the Cartel’s armor before they even know they’ve exposed themselves.
“Their shipment lands at Pier 27 tomorrow night,” Teo says one evening, his voice flat but focused. “Weapons. High-end. Heavy.”
I nod, already planning. “Rocco, get your people on the dockworkers’ union. I want eyes and ears before they unload a single crate.”
Rocco leans back in his chair, cracking his knuckles. “Done.”
Dante handles the international angles, his connections running deep in shipping and logistics. When the Cartel reroutes their product through the ports in Jersey, Dante has their smugglers cornered before they even leave the harbor.
“We’ve got a freighter with their name on it,” he tells me, his tone smug. “Offloaded on our doorstep by mistake. Shame, isn’t it?”
Even Max, recovering from his head injury, refuses to sit idle. He spends most of his time glued to my side whenever I’m not out in the field myself, contributing where he can.
“We’ve cut off most of their resources now,” he says one night, his voice still a little rough, one eye perpetually sagging under his wound. “It’s only a matter of time before desperation weeds out their weaker foot soldiers. Rubio can’t keep them paid.”
But this war is more than tactics and alliances. It’s a grind.
Months of bloodshed, back-and-forth battles, and neighborhoods turned into war zones. Businesses pay the price of our aggression. Families hide behind locked doors.
And through it all, I miss her.
Mia.
Four months of nothing but a hard cot and a dozen other men snoring in my ear, and I can still imagine her tucked beneath the blankets of my king-sized bed at the Brownstone.
Our bed.
My one reassurance is that she’s safe, hidden in a bunker far from the chaos. She might hate me for it; likely, she’ll never forgive me for locking her away again. But theirs are the three heartbeats that I refuse to put at risk.
But every day without her feels like a knife twisting in my chest. When the silence falls at the end of each long night, all I can think about is her voice, her touch.
I think of the way she used to look at me in those brief moments when I thought we could be something important.
“Heads up.” Rocco drags me from my brooding to draw my attention back to the war room. “Teo’s found something.”
The Cartel pushes back harder every week, desperate and cornered.
But I push harder.
When they try to open a new drug route through Brighton Beach, I have Max and Dante shut it down before the ink on their contracts dries. When they threaten one of Teo’s cyber operatives, Rocco has the man relocated and safe within hours.
Move. Countermove.
But no matter how many victories I win, the weight never lifts. Not when every choice I make seems to drive us deeper into the trenches. When every success leads me further from Mia.
Yet I cling to a notion, a plan that’s been weeks in the making. Every detail, every contingency, is hammered out with precision.
I don’t leave anything to chance—this isn’t just about winning. It’s about crushing the Cartel so thoroughly that Amos Rubio has no choice but to retreat to his fortress. One blow big enough to corner him for good. The beginning of the end.
Teo finally joins us at the table, spreading out the maps he’s been working on before us—the Cartel’s remaining operations are like a spiderweb stretched across the city.
“They’ve centralized,” he says as he taps at the map. “One location, high risk, higher security. They’re desperate.”
“Good. That makes them predictable.”
Our target is a sprawling warehouse, one of the last major hubs the Cartel controls in Brooklyn. It’s more than a storage site; it’s their final lifeline. Drugs, weapons, cash—all of it flows through that building.
“We hit it hard and fast,” Dante says as he peers over the map behind Teo. “Take it out, and they’ll fold.”
“Not just fold,” I correct him. “We want Rubio on his knees.”
On the night of the attack, the air is electric.
Rocco secures our entry point through his contacts in the docks. Max oversees the strike team, coordinating with Dante to handle extraction. Teo monitors everything from his command center, relaying updates to keep us one step ahead.
My men move like shadows, slipping through the dark streets surrounding the warehouse. From my vantage point on a nearby rooftop, I watch as the Cartel’s guards patrol the perimeter, their arrogance palpable.
They don’t see it coming.
It begins with a single explosion—atTeo’s signal. A fuel truck parked along the warehouse ignites in a massive fireball, throwing the guards into chaos. My men move in immediately, breaching the building within seconds.
I’m on the ground with them, leading the charge. My gun is steady in my hand, every shot purposeful. I don’t waste time or ammunition. Each Cartel soldier that stands in our way falls quickly, their defenses crumbling under the weight of our assault.
“Save some for the rest of us,” Dante barks a laugh as he dispatches a man on my left with a flourishing gesture of his knife.
“This isn’t a damn game.”
The body slumps to the floor at my feet before Dante replies again. “That makes six. How many did you get?”
I point my gun over his shoulder and shoot the man inches away from tackling Dante from behind. “Thirteen.”
The warehouse is a maze of crates and machinery. We had prepared for this, running through the schematics a hundred times. But no amount of preparation could have prepared me for the heaviness of the air, thick with smoke and adrenaline.
I can barely make out Max as he leads a group to secure the northern exit. Dante disappears at my side, too. His team pushes south, cutting off any escape routes.
I’m left to monitor my own team, still picking off the stragglers that were standing guard, waiting for the all-clear from Max and Dante.
When it comes, I don’t hesitate.
We storm the central storage area, where lingering Cartel goons desperately attempt to shove duffle bags into heavily fortified SUVs, scrambling to regroup to face their imminent demise.
The sound of gunfire and shouts fills the air, but we don’t relent. My team presses forward, refusing to yield to the pressure of their incoming fire. I can practically see the fear in their eyes when they realize we aren’t ducking for cover.
I shoot brazenly, drawing as much fire as possible, taking a shot to the chest that punches into my bulletproof vest with the force of a bus. But still, I keep pushing us forward.
I’m a ruthless distraction if ever there was one.
I’m buying Max and Dante enough time to circle back. Within minutes, we have them entirely surrounded.
It’s with no small amount of satisfaction that I watch the remaining guards either surrender or flee into the night. Their loyalty to the Cartel shattered in one ruthless night.
“Secure the perimeter,” I command, stepping over a body as I make my way to the office at the back of the building.
Inside, I find exactly what I’m looking for: ledgers, shipment schedules, and stacks of cash. Evidence that ties Amos Rubio directly to every crime he’s committed in Brooklyn.
“Boss,” Teo’s voice crackles through the comms. “Rubio’s on the move. He’s retreating back to the mansion. We’ve got him cornered.”
I allow myself a brief, grim smile.
“Good,” I say. “Now it’s only a matter of time before?—”
“LEON.”
My head snaps up at the sound of Isabella’s voice. She runs into the office, panting hard as she all but falls at my feet.
“What the hell are you doing here, Issy?” I’m yelling, out of fear or maybe outrage. I’m not entirely sure which.
Isabella remains unfazed, grabbing hold of my arm urgently and tugging me to my feet. “It’s Mia.”
All sense of victory immediately shatters at my feet.
“What?”
“Leon, she’s gone into labor.”