Chapter 2 - The Siege of Iron & Blood
The heavy oak doors of the Rusty Piston slammed shut just as the first barrage of suppressed gunfire chewed through the wood.
Splinters the size of daggers exploded into the dimly lit room. The biker leader—a mountain of a man known only as Brick—didn't flinch. He grabbed the boy by his oversized collar, sweeping him under the solid oak table just as a line of bullets shattered the neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign above them. Glass rained down in a glowing, sparking shower.
"Guns up! Positions!" Brick roared, his voice cutting through the chaos like a foghorn.
Around him, thirty bikers snapped into action. These weren't just weekend riders; they were the Iron Hounds, veterans of a forgotten underworld war. Tables were flipped into barricades. Heavy revolvers, sawed-off shotguns, and tactical rifles were drawn from beneath leather vests and behind the bar counter.
Brick looked down at the trembling boy, whose small hands were still clutching the blood-stained gold coin. The symbol on it—a blindfolded woman carrying a sword and shield—burned into Brick's memory. It was an Excommunicado marker. A blood debt.
"Kid," Brick growled, his scarred face inches from the boy. "You said your dad is John Wick."
The boy shook his head frantically, tears cutting tracks through the grime on his face. "No! My dad is Elias! He told me to say that name and show you this coin! He said... he said the name would wake up the ghosts. And the coin would make them fight."
Brick’s breath hitched. Elias. The man who had pulled Brick out of a burning cartel compound ten years ago. Elias wasn't John Wick—John Wick was a myth, a bedtime story assassins told to keep each other awake at night. But Elias using the myth as a panic code meant one terrifying thing: whoever was outside was dangerous enough to warrant waking the devil himself.
"Breach! Window!" someone yelled.
Three dark figures dressed in advanced tactical gear crashed through the front windows, assault rifles raised. They didn't get a chance to fire. The bartender, a grizzled man with an eyepatch, leveled a 12-gauge shotgun and blew the first intruder back out onto the asphalt. The bar erupted into deafening gunfire. Muzzle flashes strobed like lightning in the dark room, illuminating the sheer brutality of the firefight.
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Brick shoved the boy toward the trapdoor behind the bar. "Down! Go down to the cellar and don't make a sound!"
As the boy scrambled into the darkness, Brick stood up, drawing a massive .50 caliber Desert Eagle. The ghosts were awake. And they were thirsty.
