Chapter 5 - Gunfire at the Iron GateMy heart stopped.
“Luca?” I whispered, pressing my hands against the cold steel.
No answer.
Only the sound of frantic breathing on the other side.
Someone was bleeding out right outside the door.
I grabbed the handle from the inside.
There was an emergency release lever.
A voice in my head screamed at me to stay put.
You're safe in here.
You're just a maid.
If you open that door, Bernardo’s men will kill you.
Then I heard a cough.
A wet, agonizing gasp.
It was Luca.
He was dying out there.
Just like Margaret.
Just like Sienna.
I gripped the red emergency lever.
I pulled it down with all my weight.
The hydraulic locks hissed.
The heavy door swung outward.
The hallway was filled with thick, grey smoke.
The smell of cordite and copper burned my nose.
Luca was sitting slumped against the wall opposite the door.
His dark suit jacket was torn open.
Blood was pouring freely from his left shoulder.
A bullet wound.
High caliber.
Directly through the subclavian artery area.
His gun lay two feet from his limp right hand.
Down the corridor, two dead men in tactical gear lay sprawled across the stairs.
Luca had taken them down alone.
His eyes flickered open when he heard the door open.
He looked at me in disbelief.
“Emma... you fool... get back inside...”
“Shut up, Luca,” I whispered.
I dropped to my knees beside him.
His skin was turning ashen.
His lips were dry.
“Subclavian hit,” I muttered, ripping my cotton apron down the middle. “You're bleeding out in minutes.”
“Leave me... they're coming back up...”
“I didn't bring your sister back just to let you bleed to death in a hallway.”
I balled up half of my apron into a tight wad.
I pressed it directly into the bullet hole.
Luca roared in agony.
His hand shot out and gripped my wrist like a vice.
His fingernails bit into my flesh.
“Hold on!” I cried. “I have to pack the wound!”
I shoved the cloth deeper, using all my strength to compress the severed artery.
Tears sprang to his eyes, but he did not make another sound.
He clenched his teeth so hard I thought they would crack.
He looked into my face.
Through the agony, his dark eyes fixed on mine.
“You're something else, Emma Reed.”
“I'm a stubborn maid. Now help me get you inside the safe room.”
He nodded weakly.
He tried to stand, leaning his massive frame against me.
He groaned as his weight nearly crushed me to the floor.
Step by step.
Dragging his boots through his own blood.
We crossed the threshold into the steel panic room.
I hit the emergency close button.
The door sealed shut.
The locks slid into place.
Luca collapsed onto the leather sofa against the wall.
He was shivering violently.
Shock was setting in.
I found a medical kit mounted on the wall.
Bandages. Hemostatic gauze. Antiseptic. Syringes.
“This will hurt worse than the bullet,” I warned him, ripping open a pack of QuikClot combat gauze.
Luca chuckled weakly, blood speckling his lips.
“Do your worst, nurse.”
I packed the burning chemical gauze directly into his bullet track.
Luca’s entire body went rigid.
He threw his head back against the cushion, veins bulging in his neck.
He grabbed my hip with his good hand, holding on for dear life.
The bleeding began to slow.
The clotting agent was working.
I wrapped tight pressure bandages around his chest and shoulder.
My hands were covered in his blood.
My breath came in ragged gasps.
Finally, the bleeding stopped.
I collapsed onto the floor beside the couch, my back resting against the leather.
The room was utterly silent.
Above us, through the ventilation shaft, the sounds of distant gunshots faded away.
Luca’s heavy breathing slowly stabilized.
Ten minutes passed.
Neither of us spoke.
Then, Luca looked down at me from the sofa.
His hand dropped from his chest and rested gently on my shoulder.
His touch was warm.
Gentle.
Nothing like the brutal Don everyone feared.
“Why did you leave nursing school, Emma?”
I wiped my sweaty forehead with the back of my bloody arm.
“My father had a massive stroke. He needs round-the-clock care. The facility costs four thousand dollars a month.”
Luca watched me quietly.
“So you cleaned my floors to pay for his bed.”
“I do what I have to do.”
Luca closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, there was a fierce intensity in his gaze.
“Your father will have the best private hospital in the country tomorrow morning.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Paid in full. For the rest of his life.”
Tears suddenly stung my eyes.
“Luca... you don't owe me that.”
“You saved Sienna. You saved me.”
He reached out his good hand and cupped my cheek.
His thumb wiped away a tear I hadn't realized I was crying.
“I owe you everything, Emma.”
Suddenly, the red emergency light on the wall began to flash.
A sharp alarm tone chimed through the safe room.
The internal security monitor flickered to life.
On the screen was the hallway directly outside our steel door.
Standing in the hallway was not Luca's security.
It was Vanessa.
She had an assault rifle slung over her shoulder.
Beside her stood an older man with silver hair and a ruthless smile.
Don Bernardo Moretti.
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And in Bernardo’s hand was an electronic breaching device attached to our door's master panel.
A red digital timer on the screen began counting down from sixty seconds.
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