Chapter 4 - A Livestream with Twenty Million Witnesses
The SUV lurched sideways as a bullet struck our rear tire.
The heavy run-flat rubber held, but the vehicle fishtailed violently across the
slick bridge.
Metal screeched against the guardrail.
Sparks rained outside the darkened windows.
Camilla screamed, curling into a ball on the floor.
I stayed flat on my belly beneath Alessandro’s legs.
The scent of his expensive cologne mixed with gun smoke and blood.
“Marco, take the exit toward Queens!” Alessandro barked into the front.
“We won’t make it to the safehouse, boss!” Marco yelled back, fighting the
steering wheel. “They’ve blocked the bridge off-ramp!”
Through the cracked rear glass, I saw the headlights of three heavy Suburbans
surging forward.
They were ramming our bumper.
The impact threw my head against the leather seat frame.
Blood trickled down into my eyebrow.
Alessandro leaned out the side window into the roaring rain.
He fired three precise shots into the radiator of the lead pursuer.
Steam erupted from the chase car’s hood.
It spun out across four lanes, crashing into a concrete divider.
Two cars remained.
Camilla’s phone slid across the rubber floor mat toward my hands.
The screen was flooded with millions of comments scrolling at lightning speed:
Is this real?!
Call 911! The Moretti heir is under fire!
Who is that girl in the uniform?!
Look at the phone messages! Carlo Russo set him up!
The entire world was watching the mafia war unfold in real time.
Carlo couldn't hide this behind closed doors.
He couldn't bribe the police commissioner to bury this.
I picked up the phone.
“What are you doing?” Alessandro demanded, pulling his head back inside the
vehicle.
“They want to kill us in the dark,” I said, wiping blood from my eyes.
My hands shook, but my voice remained steady.
“So put them in the light.”
I pointed the camera lens directly at Camilla, who was sobbing in terror.
“Say it, Camilla,” I said cold.
“What?!” she cried.
“Tell the stream what your uncle Carlo ordered.”
“Sophie, don’t play games,” Alessandro snapped, reaching for the phone.
“Wait!” I blocked his arm. “If Carlo’s men kill us here, they can claim you
attacked them. But if twenty million people hear her confess, Carlo is finished
before he can take your father’s seat!”
Alessandro looked at me.
Really looked at me.
A flicker of shock crossed his dark face.
He had expected a broken waitress.
He didn't realize who raised me.
My father was a master of political warfare.
He had taught me that public exposure was more lethal than a thousand bullets.
Alessandro turned his gun back onto Camilla.
“Speak,” he commanded.
Camilla stared into the glowing phone lens.
Her chest heaved.
She knew her life hung by a millimeter of steel.
“Uncle Carlo... he wanted Alessandro out of the way,” she sobbed into the mic.
“He paid Monsieur Laurent to burn the Dubois ledger. He said... he said the
Moretti syndicate belonged to him now.”
The live stream chat went into absolute overdrive.
News networks were already picking up the feed.
CNN. The New York Times. Local broadcasters.
Suddenly, the lead chasing truck slammed violently into our left flank.
The impact flipped our SUV onto two wheels.
We skidded across three lanes of concrete before crashing into an abandoned
warehouse wall.
The world went upside down.
Glass shattered into dust.
Airbags exploded with blinding white powder.
My head slammed into the reinforced door frame.
Everything went black for three agonizing seconds.
When I opened my eyes, the car was tilted on its side.
Marco was slumped over the deflated steering wheel, unconscious.
Camilla was screaming, pinned beneath the middle seat.
Alessandro kicked the crushed passenger door off its hinges with a sickening
metallic crunch.
He dragged me out into the pouring rain.
His shirt was soaked in crimson.
He fell to one knee on the asphalt, coughing blood.
From the smashed chase truck fifty feet away, four heavily armed men emerged.
Their assault rifles were raised.
At the head of the group stood an older man in an immaculate Italian overcoat.
Carlo Moretti.
His silver hair was slicked back by the rain.
He held a gold-plated revolver in his right hand.
He aimed it straight at his nephew’s chest.
“You always were too sentimental, Alessandro,” Carlo said through the storm.
Alessandro tried to lift his Glock.
His arm gave out.
He collapsed to the wet pavement.
Carlo stepped forward, turning the gold barrel toward my face.
“And you,” Carlo whispered with a cruel sneer. “Étienne Dubois’s bastard. You
should have died in France fifteen years ago.”
May you like
He cocked the hammer.
A red laser dot appeared dead center on my forehead.
