Chapter 5 - Bloodlines And Broken Alibis
The red emergency strobes painted the walls in blood.
"Leo, kill the lights," Adrian ordered instantly.
His voice remained completely devoid of panic.
"All of them?" Leo asked.
"Total blackout. Switch to auxiliary infrared."
Leo hit the main breaker panel beside the desk.
The world went pitch black.
Only the pale moonlight filtering through the skylights sixty feet above
illuminated the dust motes.
Gunfire erupted below.
Dozens of heavy caliber rounds shattered the glass windows of the mezzanine
office.
Glass exploded inward like crystalline shrapnel.
Adrian grabbed my waist and dragged me behind the solid steel desk.
We crouched together against the cold floor.
Splinters of oak and shards of glass rained down onto our backs.
"Where is the knife?" Adrian whispered directly into my ear.
His breath was warm against my temple.
"In my hand," I hissed back, clutching the silver casing against my ribs.
"Keep it safe. If they take this building, you run through the sub-floor
maintenance tunnel."
"What about you?"
Adrian reached under his arm.
He pulled out a heavy black custom 1911 pistol.
He racked the slide with a clean, lethal clack.
"I don't run from Sal Castiglione," he said.
Below us, Sal's voice echoed through the megaphone again.
"Come on, Moretti! You're protecting a dead man's sister! She means nothing to
you!"
Sal laughed.
A greasy, arrogant sound that made my teeth ache.
"You think Danny was your loyal little pet? He sold you out to the Feds six
months before he dropped!"
Adrian didn't flinch.
He didn't answer.
He tapped his communication earpiece.
"Squad two. Flank from the bay doors. Squeeze them."
A burst of static answered in his ear.
Then, from the floor below, the heavy rattle of a secondary firefight erupted.
Adrian's men were moving.
"Leo," Adrian signaled. "Suppress the mezzanine stairs."
Leo leaned around the shattered frame of the office door.
His rifle barked in three-round bursts.
Cries of pain echoed from the metal stairs outside.
"Now," Adrian grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the rear wall of the office.
He pressed a hidden latch beneath a framed nautical map.
The wall swung outward on silent brass hinges.
A narrow, concrete stairway plunged down into darkness.
"Down," Adrian said. "Thirty yards. The door leads to the dry dock tunnel. It
comes out at Pier 14."
"I'm not leaving you," I said.
The words came out before I could filter them.
Adrian stopped.
His gray eyes locked onto mine in the gloom.
"You don't even know me, Emily."
"You knew my brother," I said fiercely. "And you didn't leave me in that alley."
A faint, dangerous smile ghosted across Adrian’s lips.
"Then stay behind me," he said. "And don't hesitate."
He didn't take the stairs.
He turned back toward the shattered office windows.
He vaulted over the sill onto the metal catwalk.
I followed him without thinking.
The warehouse was a war zone.
Muzzle flashes cut through the darkness like strobes.
Three of Sal’s men were attempting to climb the southern metal ladder.
Adrian fired twice.
Two bodies dropped from the rungs into the darkness below.
We moved along the catwalk toward the crane controls.
Sal Castiglione stood in the center of the concrete floor, surrounded by four
heavily armed bodyguards.
He was looking up at the office windows, expecting us to be pinned down.
He hadn't seen us move along the catwalk.
Adrian aimed his weapon directly at the back of Sal’s head.
Sixty feet away.
An impossible shot in the dark with a handgun.
Adrian breathed out slowly.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
Then, a metallic click sounded directly behind my ear.
A cold steel barrel pressed into the base of my skull.
"Don't do it, Boss," a familiar voice whispered from the catwalk shadows behind
us.
Adrian didn't shoot.
He slowly lowered his weapon.
"Marcus?" I gasped, turning my eyes sideways in absolute disbelief.
Standing on the catwalk behind me, wearing a black trench coat and holding a
suppressed revolver to my head...
Was Marcus.
My cook from the Blue Anchor Diner.
His gentle, tired eyes were gone.
They were replaced by dead, reptilian coldness.
"Marcus..." My voice cracked. "You... you told me to leave through the back."
"I needed you in the alley, Em," Marcus said softly.
"Vincenzo was supposed to bag you without all this mess."
"You worked for Sal?" Adrian asked, his voice dead and level.
Adrian didn't turn around.
He kept his body facing the floor, but his posture was coiled like a spring.
"I’ve worked for Sal since before you took over Brooklyn, Moretti," Marcus
replied.
"Who do you think told him Emily was working at the Blue Anchor?"
The betrayal felt like a serrated blade twisting inside my chest.
Three years.
Marcus gave me extra shifts when I couldn't pay rent.
Marcus packed extra sandwiches for my lunch.
Marcus had watched me cry over Danny in the breakroom.
It was all an act.
He was the warden of my cage.
"Drop the piece, Adrian," Marcus ordered, pressing the gun harder against my
skull.
"Drop it, or I paint this railing with Danny's little sister."
Adrian's gray eyes met mine.
There was no pity in them now.
Only a cold, terrifying promise.
He slowly opened his fingers.
His 1911 pistol clattered against the iron grating of the catwalk.
Sal Castiglione looked up from the warehouse floor.
He saw Marcus holding the gun to my head.
Sal began to applaud.
A slow, mocking clap that echoed through the vast hangar.
"Well done, Marcus!" Sal yelled from below. "Bring them down! Let's see what
Danny left us!"
Marcus smiled thinly.
"Move, Emily. Slowly down the stairs."
He reached out his left hand to grab the collar of my jacket.
The moment his fingers touched my shoulder, Adrian moved.
It wasn't human speed.
Adrian spun, catching Marcus’s wrist with his left hand, wrenching it upward.
The revolver fired into the metal ceiling rafters.
CRACK.
Adrian drove his right elbow straight into Marcus’s jaw.
Bone cracked.
Marcus staggered back against the railing, blood spraying from his mouth.
Marcus raised the gun again, pointing it directly at Adrian’s heart.
"No!" I screamed.
I lunged forward.
Danny’s pocketknife was already in my hand.
I didn't think about rules.
I didn't think about ordinary life.
I drove the three-inch blade deep into Marcus’s forearm.
Marcus howled in agony.
The gun slipped from his fingers and plunged through the grating, tumbling
seventy feet to the floor below.
Adrian grabbed Marcus by the throat with both hands.
He lifted the full-grown man off his feet.
He shoved him backward over the edge of the catwalk railing.
Marcus dangled over the abyss.
Seventy feet above the concrete floor.
Adrian leaned in close to Marcus’s bleeding face.
"Who gave you the order to burn her apartment?" Adrian whispered.
Marcus sputtered blood. "Go... go to hell..."
"Wrong answer," Adrian said.
Adrian opened his hands.
Marcus screamed as he fell through the dark.
CRUNCH.
His scream cut off abruptly on the concrete floor below.
Sal Castiglione took three steps back in horror.
"Kill them both!" Sal shrieked to his remaining men.
Dozens of rifles aimed up at our catwalk.
Adrian grabbed my hand.
"Hold your breath," Adrian said.
"What?!"
Before I could scream, Adrian grabbed the emergency release cable of the
industrial fire sprinkler system.
He pulled it with all his weight.
The main pipe ruptured overhead.
Thousands of gallons of high-pressure industrial foam and water rained down in a
blinding, torrential wall.
The entire warehouse floor disappeared into a swirling vortex of white foam and
deafening roar.
Adrian grabbed my waist and jumped.
We didn't hit the concrete floor.
We slammed into the canvas roof of a cargo transport parked twenty feet below
the catwalk.
The canvas ripped, breaking our fall.
We crashed into the soft wooden crates inside the truck bed.
Pain flared through my ribs.
I gasped for air.
Adrian rolled to his feet instantly.
He reached into the waistband of his trousers and pulled out a backup blade.
He looked at me through the shadows of the truck bed.
"The knife," Adrian said, his chest heaving. "Give it to me now."
I pulled Danny’s knife from my pocket.
My hands were covered in Marcus’s blood.
I handed it to Adrian.
Adrian took the blade.
He wedged his backup knife into the microscopic seam along the bone handle.
He twisted.
The bone casing popped open with a sharp snap.
A tiny, micro-thin sliver of rolled photographic film tumbled out into his palm.
And with it, a folded slip of yellowed paper.
Adrian unfolded the paper.
Scrawled in Danny's unmistakable, jagged handwriting were four words:
“Adrian. The mole is—”
The rest of the paper was torn away.
Adrian stared at the scrap.
His steel eyes darkened into an abyss of rage.
"It wasn't Marcus," Adrian whispered to himself.
"What?" I choked out, wiping blood from my cheek.
"Marcus was just a dog," Adrian said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
"Sal didn't plan this alone."
He looked at me.
May you like
"Someone inside my own family gave Sal the coordinates to this warehouse
tonight."
