Chapter 9 - THE FAMILY HEIRLOOM (The Big Resolution)
“Dad!”
The word ripped from my throat before I could even process it.
Sal was covered in blood. His coat was scorched black. He looked like a ghost walking out of the rain.
“Get behind me,” Sal rasped, his voice weak but absolutely unyielding.
Vanessa and I scrambled behind him.
“You’re alive,” I sobbed, grabbing the back of his coat.
“Paramedics were… sloppy,” Sal coughed, spitting blood onto the gravel. “I wasn’t going to let him hurt my daughter.”
He looked at me, tears mixing with the rain on his wrinkled face.
“I’m sorry, Emma. I’m so sorry.”
“We’ll talk later,” I cried. “We have to save Luca.”
Inside the train car, Dominic had heard the gunshots.
The door slid open, and three guards rushed out onto the platform.
Sal didn’t hesitate.
For a seventy-one-year-old man who had driven cars his whole life, he moved with the lethal precision of an old soldier.
He fired three times.
Two guards dropped. The third ducked back inside, shouting.
“Stay here!” Sal ordered.
He limped up the metal stairs and kicked the train door open.
We followed right behind him. I wasn’t going to let him die alone.
Inside the lounge, chaos had erupted.
With the guards distracted, Luca had taken his chance.
He had swept the legs out from under the man pinning him, grabbed his rifle, and crushed the man’s jaw with the stock.
When we burst through the door, Luca was standing in the center of the room, aiming the rifle directly at Dominic’s chest.
Dominic was backed against the window, holding Leo by the collar of his shirt, a small pistol pressed against the boy’s head.
“Drop it, Luca!” Dominic screamed, losing his composure for the first time. “I’ll kill him!”
Leo was sobbing hysterically, terrified.
Luca’s hands were shaking. He couldn’t take the shot. Not with the boy in the way.
Sal stepped into the room, leaning heavily against the doorframe, his revolver pointed at Dominic.
“Let the boy go, Dominic,” Sal wheezed.
Dominic laughed wildly. “The old driver! You just don’t know when to die, do you, Sal?”
“I’m not the one dying tonight,” Sal said quietly.
He looked at Luca.
Luca understood.
Thirty-four years of unspoken communication between a driver and his boss.
Luca slowly lowered the rifle.
“Fine,” Luca said, his voice echoing in the small cabin. “You win.”
Dominic smiled, relaxing his grip on the boy just a fraction of an inch.
It was all Sal needed.
Sal didn’t shoot Dominic in the head. He didn’t risk hitting the boy.
He shot the heavy glass chandelier hanging directly above Dominic.
The massive brass fixture shattered, plunging down and violently smashing into Dominic’s shoulder.
Dominic screamed, dropping the pistol as the weight of the chandelier drove him to the floor.
Leo scrambled away, crying.
Vanessa ran forward, dropping to her knees and pulling her son into a desperate, crushing embrace.
“I’ve got you, baby. Mommy’s got you,” she sobbed, burying her face in his hair.
Luca didn’t look at them.
He walked over to Dominic, who was groaning under the shattered glass.
Luca picked up Dominic’s pistol.
He pointed it down at his uncle’s face.
“This is for my father,” Luca whispered.
“Luca, no!” I yelled.
He stopped.
I walked over to him, gently placing my hand over his on the gun.
“If you kill him now, you’re exactly what he is,” I said softly. “You’re a murderer. Let the police handle him. Let the ledger destroy him.”
Luca looked at me.
His chest was heaving. The rage in his eyes was a terrifying storm.
But slowly, the storm broke.
He lowered the gun.
He looked at Sal.
The old man was sitting on the floor, leaning against the bar, clutching his bleeding side.
“You came back for me,” Luca said, his voice breaking.
Sal offered a weak, bloody smile.
“Always, kid.”
I dropped to my knees next to Sal, pressing my hands against his wound to stop the bleeding.
“You’re going to be okay, Dad,” I cried. “You’re going to be okay.”
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Sal reached up with a trembling hand and brushed a wet strand of hair from my face.
“I love you, Emma,” he whispered. “I’ve always loved you.”
