Chapter 11 - THE GHOST ON THE ROOF
Victor Moretti froze.
The rain lashed against his face as he turned his head slowly.
"You..." Moretti breathed, his voice cracking with shock.
"You were crippled in the explosion!"
"I spent three years watching my father defuse your cartel's wire-traps, Victor," Hannah said.
Her voice didn't waver.
The gun in her hands was rock-steady, aimed directly between Moretti’s eyes.
"You killed my father because he refused to launder your dirty hospital money."
"You poisoned a three-year-old child to control an empire."
Hannah stepped forward, her limp barely visible through sheer willpower.
"You're not a mafia boss, Victor."
"You're a coward who preys on children and sick men."
Moretti’s face twisted into an expression of unhinged fury.
He swung his gold-plated pistol away from me, pointing it straight at Hannah’s chest.
"I should have drowned you with your father!" Moretti roared.
He pulled the trigger.
I didn't think.
I didn't calculate odds.
I threw my entire body across the wet gravel, lunging between Moretti’s barrel and Hannah.
The deafening crack of the .50 caliber bullet tore through the stormy night.
A white-hot line of agony ripped across my left shoulder.
The impact spun me around, but I used the momentum to drive my right shoulder into Moretti’s chest.
Both of us slammed into the rusted chain-link safety fence at the edge of the roof.
The metal groaned under our combined weight.
The fence gave way.
Moretti screamed as his legs slipped over the edge, dangling three hundred feet above the churning black water of the East River.
His hands scrambled desperately, clawing at the rusted iron lip of the roof.
His gold gun tumbled into the abyss, vanishing into the darkness.
I knelt on the wet gravel, clutching my bleeding shoulder with one hand.
With my right hand, I gripped Moretti’s wrist.
The rain poured down between us.
Moretti looked up at me, his eyes wide with primal, animalistic terror.
"Damian! Don't let me fall!" he pleaded, his voice stripped of all arrogance.
"I have fifty million in Zurich! I’ll give you the accounts! I’ll leave the country! You'll never see me again!"
His fingers slipped an inch through the slick rain.
I held him.
My muscles burned with exhaustion, the bullet wound in my shoulder bleeding freely through my coat.
I looked down into the face of the monster who had spent three years tormenting my family.
Hannah walked over, stopping beside me at the edge of the roof.
She looked down at Moretti.
No anger in her face.
Only a profound, sorrowful disgust.
"What did my father say to you before you shot him, Victor?" Hannah asked softly.
Moretti sobbed, his grip weakening.
"He... he said evil always devours itself," Moretti choked out.
Hannah looked at me.
"He was right."
I looked at Moretti one last time.
"This is for Claire," I whispered.
I released his wrist.
Moretti shrieked as he plummeted into the dark void.
The sound of his voice was swallowed instantly by the roaring wind and the black waters below.
Silence reclaimed the rooftop.
I slumped back onto the gravel, breathing in deep, ragged gulps of cold air.
Hannah immediately dropped to her knees beside me.
Her hands moved with practiced surgical efficiency, tearing open my shirt to inspect the wound.
"Clean pass," she breathed, her voice shaking with adrenaline.
"Missed the artery. But you're losing too much blood."
She took off her wool scarf and pressed it firmly against the wound.
I looked up into her face.
Rain mixed with tears on her cheeks, her hair plastered to her forehead.
"You followed me to Brooklyn," I murmured, my vision blurring slightly.
"I told you," she whispered, her hands pressing hard against my chest.
"Your daughter doesn't need a dead hero, Damian."
"She needs a father who comes home."
I reached up with my bloody hand and gently touched her jaw.
"Then take me home, Hannah."
She smiled through her tears, leaning down until her forehead rested against mine.
May you like
"Always."
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