Chapter 6 - Confessions in the Rain
The air in the subterranean crypt turned instantly freezing.
Luca didn't flinch.
He didn't duck for cover.
He stood in the center of the underground vault, holding the crumpled documents in his fist.
His gray eyes locked onto his younger sister.
“Isabella?” Luca whispered.
The word sounded like broken glass.
Isabella didn't lower the gun.
Her hand trembled slightly, but her jaw was set in bitter defiance.
“I’m sorry, Luca,” she said, her voice echoing down the spiral stairs.
“You’re sorry?” Luca took a step toward the base of the stairs.
“Don't move, Luca!” she cried out, cocking the hammer of the revolver.
“Don't take another step!”
Daniel and Matteo immediately raised their weapons, aiming upward into the narrow stairwell.
“Drop your guns, boys,” Carlo Bellini said smoothly, stepping beside Isabella.
“Or my men outside will execute the old woman resting in Emma’s apartment.”
Luca stopped dead in his tracks.
His chest rose and fell heavily.
“How did you find that apartment, Carlo?” Luca asked, his voice deadly calm.
Carlo smiled, adjusting the cuffs of his pristine white shirt.
“Your sister gave us the address forty minutes ago while Daniel was busy loading you into the SUV.”
Luca slowly turned his head to look at Isabella again.
“Why, Bella?”
“Because you were never supposed to inherit the Moretti syndicate!” Isabella shouted, tears finally spilling down her cheeks.
“You’re a bastard, Luca! You have Bellini blood in your veins! Antonio Moretti wasn't your father!”
“Antonio raised me,” Luca growled.
“Antonio gave you everything!” Isabella screamed back, her voice cracking with hysterical resentment.
“He gave you the shipping docks! He gave you the family seat! He gave you the soldiers! And what did he leave me? A trust fund and charity galas!”
“Antonio was protecting you from this life,” Luca said.
“No!” she spat.
“He was protecting his shame! My mother died of grief because Antonio brought Carlo Bellini’s bastard into our home!”
Carlo placed a gentle, patronizing hand on Isabella’s shoulder.
“Calm down, my dear. The boy understands now.”
Carlo looked down the stairs at Luca.
“Hand over the envelope, Luca. Hand over the tapes. And we will let you walk away into exile.”
“You think I would ever walk away from you, Carlo?” Luca asked.
“You have no choice,” Carlo said coldly.
“Your mother has thirty minutes of oxygen left in that apartment before my men turn off the machines. Give me the documents, and I will call them off.”
Luca looked down at the parchment paper in his hand.
Then his eyes drifted toward me.
I was standing against the steel beam, shivering in the shadows.
Our eyes met for a fraction of a second.
Luca’s expression didn't show defeat.
It showed cold, calculating fury.
“Emma,” Luca said softly.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Do you remember the emergency switch Daniel showed you on the tactical vest?”
Carlo frowned.
“What is he talking about?”
“Now, Emma!” Luca roared.
I didn't think.
I reached out and slammed my palm against the emergency master switch on the wall beside the safe—the switch Daniel had pointed out when we first entered the vault.
The reinforced steel emergency blast door above the stairs slammed shut with the force of an avalanche.
The heavy steel slab severed the stairs in two, locking Carlo and Isabella on the top side.
Gunfire immediately hammered against the three-inch steel plate from above.
Sparks flew, but the bullets couldn't penetrate the armor.
“Matteo!” Luca barked.
“Boss!”
“The smuggler’s tunnel behind the altar. Blow the charges!”
Matteo sprinted to the far corner of the subterranean crypt.
He slapped a brick of breaching explosive against the old brick wall and pulled the pin on a manual delay detonator.
“Fire in the hole!” Matteo yelled, diving behind the open safe door.
Luca grabbed my waist and threw his broad body over me, pressing me flat against the stone floor.
The blast detonated with a bone-jarring roar.
Bricks and dust showered over Luca’s back.
The shockwave rattled through my teeth.
The air filled with thick gray smoke and sulfur.
Luca pushed himself up immediately.
He looked down at me, brushing plaster dust from my forehead.
“Are you hurt, Emma?”
“I’m fine,” I coughed, wiping dust from my eyes.
“Can you run?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because we have twenty minutes to save my mother.”
Through the shattered brick wall lay an old drainage tunnel leading toward the Chicago riverbank.
We scrambled through the jagged hole into the muddy, freezing darkness.
Daniel led the way with a tactical flashlight.
We ran through ankle-deep water, the sound of our splashing boots echoing off the curved concrete pipe.
Five minutes later, we burst out onto the muddy banks of the North Branch Canal.
A matte-black speed boat sat idling against the wooden pilings.
Matteo had planned the extraction route before we ever left the mansion.
We scrambled aboard.
Matteo slammed the twin throttles forward.
The boat surged into the dark, choppy water, spraying cold river spray into our faces.
Luca stood near the bow, pulling his satellite phone from a waterproof pouch.
He dialed Dr. Rossi’s emergency frequency.
Static crackled on the line.
“Rossi!” Luca shouted over the roar of the boat engines.
“Luca!” Dr. Rossi’s voice came through, panting and terrified.
“They’re outside! Three armed men are cutting through the fire escape lock!”
“Hold them off for six minutes!” Luca ordered.
“I am coming up the river!”
Luca hung up and looked at Daniel.
“We don't take the stairs when we get to Pilsen,” Luca said.
“How are we getting to the third floor, boss?” Daniel asked.
May you like
Luca looked up at the dark Chicago skyline ahead of us.
“We go through the roof.”
