Chapter 4 - The Game at the Gates
The twilight mist was rolling off the Hudson River, turning the sprawling lawns of the Vitale estate into a gray, featureless expanse.
Damiano walked down the gravel drive toward the wrought-iron security gates, his long wool coat snapping in the sharp evening wind. Behind him, two armed guards from his personal detail walked in absolute silence, their boots crunching rhythmically against the stone.
Parked outside the main gates sat a single marked New York State Police cruiser, its red and blue emergency lights flashing silently against the deepening dusk.
Leaning against the hood of the cruiser was a single trooper—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a brimmed hat pulled low over his forehead. But as Damiano approached, he noticed something wrong with the uniform: the insignia on the collar was slightly askew, and the boots weren't standard state-issue leather.
They weren't troopers. They were actors wearing rented armor.
"Evening, officer," Damiano said, his voice cutting through the mist as he stopped five feet from the gate bars. "You're a long way from the highway detail."
The man in the trooper uniform looked up, forcing a stiff, unnatural smile. "Mr. Vitale. We received a 911 dispatch regarding an unauthorized civilian entering the property—a woman and a child."
Damiano’s eyes locked onto the man's right hand, which rested casually near his holstered service weapon. "Is that right? Odd that you'd bring a cruiser all the way up our private access road for a stray civilian, instead of calling the estate security desk thirty yards away."
The faux trooper’s smile vanished. His hand twitched toward his holster.
Before the man's fingers could wrap around the grip, Damiano moved with terrifying speed. He drew his concealed pistol and fired a single round through the iron bars. The bullet punched clean through the cruiser’s radiator, hissing loudly as a plume of white steam erupted from beneath the hood.
"Drop it!" one of Damiano’s guards shouted, leveling his assault rifle through the gate rails.
From the treelines beside the access road, shadows suddenly detached themselves from the gloom. Three men armed with suppressed submachine guns spilled out from the brush, opening fire blindly toward the gate.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets sparked off the iron bars and chewed into the asphalt around Damiano’s feet.
"Ambush!" Enzo roared from behind Damiano, drawing his own weapon and returning fire into the treeline. "Get down, Boss!"
Damiano didn't duck. He dropped into a professional combat stance, returning controlled, precise shots toward a muzzle flash flickering behind an oak trunk thirty yards out. One of the gunmen dropped with a muffled cry, rolling into the ditch.
"Fall back to the house!" Damiano ordered, his voice cutting through the gunfire without a tremor of panic. "Move!"
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As they retreated up the long gravel drive under covering fire, Damiano’s mind raced. The fake troopers weren't here to arrest anyone. They were a reconnaissance probe—or worse, an assassination team designed to draw him out into the open while the main security detail was distracted at the perimeter.
And the only way they knew the exact time he would be walking toward the gates... was if someone inside the house had given them the signal.
