Chapter 12 - The Fighting Pits
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The abandoned meatpacking plant loomed in the darkness like a decaying concrete fortress. The windows were boarded up, but the faint, erratic beams of flashlights leaked through the cracks, accompanied by the chaotic sounds of shouting men and barking dogs.
Silas stood on the loading dock, furiously directing his crew. Three heavy box trucks were backed up to the bays.
"Hurry up! Get the heavy cage loaded first!" Silas yelled, waving his gun in the air.
Inside the warehouse, four men approached Brutus’s reinforced cage with thick leather gloves and tranquilizer dart guns.
Brutus didn't back into the corner. He stood dead center in the enclosure, his massive chest heaving, blood dripping from his gums. The electricity from the stun baton had worn off hours ago, replaced entirely by pure, unadulterated protective fury. He remembered the little girl screaming for him. He remembered the man who had hit her mother. He was not a pet; he was a guardian bred for the frozen mountains of the Caucasus, and he was ready to die before he let them put another collar on him.
"Shoot the damn dart!" one thug yelled.
The man with the dart gun raised the weapon, aiming it through the steel bars at the dog's thick neck.
Before he could pull the trigger, the massive, rolling steel door at the front of the warehouse exploded completely off its tracks.
The deafening crash shook the entire building. The heavy steel door flew inward, crushing a forklift beneath it.
Silas spun around on the loading dock, his eyes wide with absolute terror.
A sleek, armored black SUV had rammed directly through the entrance. The vehicle skidded to a halt in the center of the warehouse floor, its high-beam headlights blinding the men inside.
Before the dust even settled, the doors of the SUV flew open.
Gabriel Rossi stepped out.
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He didn't look like a businessman anymore. He had discarded the suit jacket. He wore a black tactical vest over his dress shirt, carrying a suppressed submachine gun. A dozen heavily armed syndicate enforcers poured into the warehouse from the shattered entrance and the side doors, completely surrounding Silas's crew in less than ten seconds.
"Nobody moves!" Gabriel roared, his voice echoing off the high concrete ceilings, carrying the absolute authority of a king ordering an execution. "Drop your weapons, or you die exactly where you stand."
