Chapter 6 - Hunting the Vultures
*Six hours earlier. 2:15 AM.*
The industrial stretch of 48th Avenue in Queens was deserted, drowning under sheets of freezing rain. The streetlights flickered intermittently, buzzing like dying insects against the wet asphalt.
Sullivan’s Auto Body was a rusted corrugated-steel warehouse squeezed between a scrap yard and an abandoned textile mill. Inside, the air was thick with the stench of cheap cigars, stale beer, and motor oil.
Ten men were gathered around a makeshift poker table in the center of the garage bay. Stacks of crumpled bills, torn ledgers, and illegal betting slips were piled high.
“I’m telling you, the fat bitch’s arm snapped like a toothpick,” Frankie Cole laughed, leaning back on a metal folding chair, tossing an empty beer can into the corner. He was a barrel-chested thug with a broken nose, wearing a dirty tank top that displayed tribal tattoos across his beefy arms. He casually leaned an aluminum Louisville Slugger against his knee. “Should’ve heard the squeal she let out. Sounded like a stuck pig.”
Mickey Sullivan, a gaunt, rodent-faced man with yellowed teeth and greasy thinning hair, counted a stack of twenties. “Yeah, well, breaking her arm don't pay the juice, Frankie. Forty grand is forty grand. If she don't show up with the first five thousand by Friday, go back to her apartment. Break both her legs this time. Throw her out on the street.”
“Gladly,” Frankie grinned, picking up the bat and taking a slow practice swing through the air. “I like breaking soft things.”
Suddenly, the power cut out.
The fluorescent tubes overhead flickered and died, plunging the warehouse into pitch-black darkness.
“What the fuck?” Sullivan snapped, dropping his pen. “Jimmy, go check the breaker box.”
Before Jimmy could take two steps, the heavy corrugated roll-up door at the front of the garage buckled inward with a thunderous screech of tearing steel.
A matte-black Ford F-350, reinforced with a heavy steel push bumper, rammed through the entrance, sending shards of metal, glass, and brick flying across the concrete floor. The truck’s high beams flared to life—blinding, four-thousand-lumen LED lights that turned the interior of the warehouse into a harsh, stark white nightmare.
“Hands up! Drop your weapons!” a voice bellowed through the headlights.
“It’s a hit! Get the guns!” Sullivan shrieked, reaching for a snub-nosed revolver on the poker table.
He never reached it.
From the flanks of the truck, four men clad in tactical black body armor stepped into the light. In their hands were suppressed MP5 submachine guns.
The sound of the gunfire was not the loud roar of the movies, but the rapid, terrifying *chuff-chuff-chuff* of high-velocity lead passing through suppressors.
Muzzle flashes strobed in the darkness.
Jimmy took three rounds to the chest and collapsed instantly across the poker table, scattering dollar bills soaked in dark crimson. Two enforcers by the hydraulic lift tried to draw their pistols; their bodies jerked violently like marionettes on severed strings before crashing against the concrete.
“Move! Back door!” Frankie screamed, terrified, dropping the bat and diving behind a rusted Chevy Impala.
The warehouse erupted into controlled, methodical slaughter. The DeAgostino soldiers moved like wolves among sheep. There was no hesitation, no shouting, no mercy. Every corner of the garage was swept with lethal efficiency.
Within ninety seconds, nine men lay dead across the grease-stained floor, pooling blood mingling with motor oil and stale beer.
Mickey Sullivan crawled toward the rear fire exit, clutching a shattered shoulder, his breath coming in ragged, bloody gasps. He dragged himself across the concrete, leaving a red smear behind him.
His fingers clawed at the emergency push bar.
A heavy, polished leather dress shoe stepped down directly onto his outstretched hand, grinding his fingers into the concrete with sickening force.
Sullivan shrieked, looking up through tears of agony.
Standing over him was not a tactical soldier.
It was Vincent DeAgostino.
Vincent wore a long, black cashmere trench coat that brushed his shins. His hair was slicked back from the rain. He looked like an archangel of death, entirely untouched by the chaos around him.
“Mickey Sullivan,” Vincent said, his voice flat, emotionless, and terrifyingly cold.
“Please... please, I don't know who you are!” Sullivan sobbed, clutching Vincent’s pant leg. “Take the money! Take everything! What did I do? Who did I cross?”
Vincent crouched down slowly, resting his forearm on his knee. He looked into Sullivan’s terrified, bloodshot eyes.
“You broke the arm of Charlotte Higgins,” Vincent said softly.
Sullivan’s eyes widened in sheer, disbelieving horror. “The... the fat maid? The Higgins girl? Are you insane? She's nobody! Her father was a fucking drunk!”
Vincent pulled a suppressed Glock 19 from beneath his coat.
“Her name is Charlotte,” Vincent whispered.
May you like
He pressed the barrel directly between Sullivan’s eyes and pulled the trigger.
---
