Chapter 7 - ASHES AND SECRETS
Lorenzo’s handcuffs rattled violently against the steel table.
“Unlock me!” he roared, veins bulging along his neck. “Unlock me now!”
Agent Vance drew her weapon.
“Sit down, Falcone!”
“Silvio’s men don't take prisoners!” Lorenzo shouted, his face contorted in sheer agony. “They’ll slaughter her and throw her out the window! Unlock these chains or I will break my own wrists to kill you!”
Vance looked at the desperate rage burning in the mafia boss’s eyes.
She pulled a key from her pocket.
Click.
The cuffs fell away.
“If you pull a weapon on my agents—”
Lorenzo was already through the door before she could finish the sentence.
He sprinted through the federal corridors, snatching a tactical vest and an MP5 from an open armory cage.
No one dared to stop him.
He looked like death incarnate.
Outside, the rain had turned into sleet.
Lorenzo commandeered an unmarked Dodge Charger, throwing the siren onto the dash.
The engine screamed as he tore down Congress Street, running red lights through the morning traffic.
Five miles away, Boston General Hospital was descending into chaos.
Vivienne woke to the sharp smell of electrical fire.
The overhead fluorescent tubes flickered and died.
Emergency red lamps cast long, bloody shadows across her hospital room.
The steady hum of her fetal heart monitor cut out.
Vivienne sat up, clutching her hospital gown.
Her IV line ripped out, leaving a trail of dark droplets on the white sheets.
In the hallway, the sound of suppressed gunfire echoed like muffled claps.
Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.
A heavy thud hit the door outside.
Vivienne slid out of bed, her bare feet touching the freezing linoleum floor.
She grabbed the heavy steel IV pole beside the bed.
The door handle turned slowly.
A man in navy maintenance overalls stepped into the room.
He wore a ballistic mask.
A Glock with an extended suppressor was leveled at the bed.
Finding it empty, he pivoted toward the bathroom.
Vivienne swung the steel pole with everything she had.
The metal struck the side of his helmet with a resounding clang.
The assassin stumbled sideways, knocking over a tray of surgical instruments.
Vivienne lunged for his wrist, trying to twist the weapon away.
The man was twice her size.
He backhanded her across the face.
Vivienne slammed into the wall, her vision exploding in white sparks.
She slid down the drywall, gasping for air, her hand immediately covering her stomach.
The assassin straightened his mask and raised the barrel directly between her eyes.
“Message from Uncle Silvio,” he growled.
The door behind him exploded off its hinges.
Lorenzo hit the assassin like a freight train.
The two men crashed through the glass partition into the adjoining bathroom.
Mirrors shattered into thousands of glittering shards.
Lorenzo didn’t use his gun.
His bare hands locked around the assassin’s throat.
He drove the man’s head into the porcelain sink until the basin cracked in half.
“You came for my wife?” Lorenzo whispered, his voice vibrating with demonic fury.
He slammed him again.
“You came for my child?”
The assassin’s body went limp, sliding into the puddle of shattered glass and running water.
Lorenzo turned, breathing hard, his knuckles stripped of skin.
He dropped to his knees beside Vivienne.
“Viv,” he choked out, gathering her into his arms. “Are you hit? Did he shoot you?”
Vivienne looked at his bloodied face, his wild eyes, his ruined hands.
She reached up with trembling fingers and touched his jaw.
“I’m here,” she whispered.
He pulled her face into his chest and wept openly against her hair.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, rocking her gently on the bloodstained floor. “I’m so sorry. I won’t let them touch you again. I swear on my life.”
Vivienne leaned her forehead against his chest, hearing his heart hammering like a trapped bird.
Suddenly, her hand brushed the interior pocket of his tactical vest.
Her fingers closed around a familiar leather-bound book.
Her mother’s journal.
He had retrieved it from the wrecked car on Route 3.
He had carried it next to his heart.
She opened the worn cover with shaking fingers.
Inside, tucked between the pages, was a photograph she hadn't seen in five years.
It was taken the day they met at her father’s garden in Cape Cod.
Lorenzo had been twenty-four, standing awkward and unsmiling beside her rose bushes, holding an old leather copy of Dante's Inferno that she had mentioned in passing the week before.
On the back of the photograph, written in Lorenzo’s sharp, jagged handwriting, was a single date:
The day my life began.
Vivienne looked up at him, her throat tight with unspoke grief.
Before she could speak, Mateo appeared in the doorway, clutching his side.
“Lorenzo,” Mateo gasped, leaning against the doorframe. “Silvio just released the harbor pipeline.”
Lorenzo’s face hardened instantly.
May you like
“What?”
“He’s dumping two hundred thousand gallons of crude oil into Boston Harbor,” Mateo said grimly. “He’s burning the entire waterfront to cover his escape—and he took Vivienne’s brother hostage on the fuel barge.”
