Chapter 8 - The Breach of Albany
The gunfight at Fish Creek was brutal, savage, and over in seven minutes.
The Iron Wolves were not street thugs; they were seasoned combat veterans, brawlers who had fought in prison yards, foreign deserts, and northern timber wars. Flanking through the icy creek bed beneath the bridge, eight riders led by Jack Carter stormed the railroad embankment, cutting through the Red Serpent snipers with close-range shotgun blasts and ruthless hand-to-hand savagery.
When the smoke cleared, eleven enemy gunmen lay dead or wounded in the mud, their timber truck burning fiercely against the gray sky. Two Iron Wolves were down with leg wounds, but the line held.
Ethan stood near the bridge railing, his hands steady now, the Colt Commander lowered at his side. He had not shot a man, but he had dragged a wounded Buffalo rider out of the line of fire beneath the truck's chassis, his clothes soaked in road mud and blood that wasn't his own.
Declan walked up beside him, his leather cut torn along the left shoulder where a rifle round had grazed the hide. The old man looked at his grandson, a slow, grim smile spreading beneath his silver beard.
"You've got your father’s spine, Christian," Declan murmured, clapping him hard on the shoulder. "Mount up. Marcus knows we're through the gate now. He’ll be waiting at the citadel."
Thirty minutes later, the iron convoy roared into the industrial outskirts of Albany.
The headquarters of the Iron Wolves’ national charter occupied a sprawling four-acre compound on the Hudson River waterfront—a converted nineteenth-century brick foundry surrounded by reinforced concrete walls, razor wire, and private security towers. For sixteen years, Marcus Sterling had ruled this fortress, turning the legitimate logistics business into a fortified narcotics distribution hub protected by thirty armed loyalists.
The heavy steel security gates of the foundry were locked tight.
Jack Carter didn't bother looking for an intercom.
The armored F-250, reinforced with a heavy three-inch steel cattle guard, accelerated down the industrial access road, hitting sixty miles per hour before slamming broadside into the double iron gates.
CRASH.
The gate hinges sheared with a deafening metallic shriek, the iron grates buckling like tinfoil as the heavy truck tore into the courtyard, followed immediately by seventy roaring motorcycles that fanned out into a tactical perimeter, sealing every exit.
Men poured out of the foundry’s brick warehouse, armed with pistols and shotguns, but they stopped dead in their tracks.
They saw seventy-four patched brothers aiming heavy rifles directly at their chests.
And standing in the bed of the gray truck, flanked by Declan Vance and Jack Carter, was the boy with Julian Vance’s face.
"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" a booming voice shouted from the grand stone steps of the foundry office.
The crowd of armed men parted.
Stepping out onto the porch was Marcus Sterling.
He was fifty-five years old, impeccably groomed, wearing a tailored charcoal suit beneath an exotic leather vest adorned with diamond-studded club patches. His hair was slicked back, his jaw sharp, his face carrying the arrogant, untouchable smirk of a man who believed he had outmaneuvered fate itself.
Beside Marcus stood four private bodyguards in tactical plate carriers, their rifles aimed directly at the truck.
"Declan," Marcus said smoothly, his voice carrying an oily, practiced charm across the courtyard. "You're trespassing on corporate territory. The national executive committee voted to retire your charter five years ago. You bring seventy guns into my yard, and you leave in body bags."
"The charter was never yours to hold, Marcus," Declan Vance answered, his voice dropping into a register of icy, absolute contempt.
Marcus laughed—a dry, mocking sound. "And who is going to take it from me? You? You're an old relic dying of arthritis in the mountains. Your time is over, old man."
"My time may be passing, Marcus," Declan said softly, stepping aside. "But his time has just begun."
Ethan stepped to the edge of the truck bed.
He reached up with both hands, unbuttoned his wool jacket, and pulled the silver wolf pendant from beneath his collar, letting the obsidian eyes of the wolf catch the midday sun.
Marcus Sterling’s smirk vanished so fast it looked as if his face had been struck by an iron crowbar.
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The billionaire gangster stumbled backward, his heel catching on the threshold of his own office door, his eyes bulging in sheer, unadulterated, cosmic terror.
"No..." Marcus choked out, his voice climbing into an ugly, ragged shriek that cracked across the courtyard. "No! That's... that's impossible! You died in the fire! I saw the bodies! I burned you!"
