Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Vault
The flashlight beams in the eastern tunnel grew brighter.
The sound of cocked weapons clicked against the stone.
“Moretti!” a voice boomed from the darkness.
It was Marco, Vincent’s top enforcer.
“Give up the girl and the paperwork! Don Vincent promises a clean death!”
Luca didn't answer.
He pushed me behind his broad back.
“Daniel, get her into the reinforced vault.”
“What about you?” I pleaded, grabbing the sleeve of his coat.
“I’m setting the charges.”
“Luca, you’re bleeding out!”
He looked down at me.
His dark eyes softened for a fraction of a second.
A look I had never seen on the face of the feared Chicago boss.
“I spent twenty-eight years believing I had no family left on this earth.”
He placed his heavy hand on top of my head.
“I am not letting them take the only real thing I have left.”
He shoved me toward Daniel.
“Go!”
Daniel grabbed my arm and pulled me through the heavy blast door of the lower armory.
He slammed the steel door shut.
The heavy hydraulic bolts engaged with a deep thunk.
Through the reinforced viewing glass, I saw Luca turn toward the tunnel.
He stood in the center of the subterranean corridor.
Unarmed.
His hands hanging loosely at his sides.
Marco and four armed men emerged into the red emergency light.
Their rifles were raised.
“On your knees, bastard,” Marco sneered.
Luca didn't move.
“Where is Vincent?” Luca asked quietly.
“The Don is upstairs, preparing his victory speech for the council.”
Marco raised his rifle to Luca’s forehead.
“Any last words for the real Moretti family?”
Luca smiled.
A cold, terrifying smile that sent a shiver down my spine.
“Tell Vincent the watch was ticking all along.”
Luca raised his right thumb.
He depressed the red toggle on the small remote hidden in his palm.
A series of deafening explosions ripped through the support pillars fifty yards behind Marco.
The ceiling of the eastern tunnel collapsed instantly.
Tons of concrete, rebar, and earth crashed down.
A massive wall of dust and rock blasted forward.
Marco and his men were thrown off their feet by the shockwave.
The emergency lights shattered.
The viewing window in our blast door cracked into a spiderweb pattern.
“Luca!” I screamed against the glass.
The air outside the vault became an impenetrable cloud of gray dust and pulverized stone.
Inside the vault, the air filtration system whirred to life.
Emergency battery power clicked on.
Daniel threw his weight against the manual release lever.
The hydraulic bolts hissed and retracted.
We forced the heavy steel door open into the choking haze.
“Luca!” I coughed, covering my face with my sleeve.
I scrambled over piles of fallen rubble.
A hand reached out from beneath a slab of broken drywall.
I grabbed it.
I pulled with all my strength.
Daniel dropped his weapon and lifted the heavy slab off Luca’s torso.
Luca rolled out into the dust, coughing violently.
His face was coated in gray powder.
His wound was bleeding profusely now, soaking his entire side.
He looked up at me through the dust.
“Did you... fix the watch?” he rasped.
I let out a sob that was half a laugh.
“The watch is fine, you idiot.”
Daniel hauled Luca to his feet.
“Boss, the tunnel collapse bought us twenty minutes.”
Daniel pointed toward an old iron ladder set into the western wall.
“That maintenance shaft leads directly into the utility alley behind the Bellini estate.”
Luca wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Good.”
“What do you mean, good?” I asked.
“Vincent thinks we are dead beneath this rubble,” Luca said.
His eyes were burning with a terrifying clarity.
“He called an emergency meeting of the Five Families for midnight.”
“He is going to announce my death and claim the Moretti territory.”
Luca picked up a discarded automatic rifle from the floor.
He checked the magazine with a sharp click.
“We are going to that meeting.”
“Luca, look at yourself!” I cried.
“You can barely stand! You need a surgeon!”
“I need retribution,” he answered.
He took the gold watch from his pocket.
The glass was intact.
The second hand was still sweeping smoothly across the dial.
He placed it into my palm.
“Keep this safe, Emma.”
“Why?”
“Because that watch contains the serial number to my mother’s private safety deposit box in Zurich.”
I stared at him.
“The real Lucia Moretti knew what her husband did,” Luca explained.
His voice was steady now.
“She couldn't stop the swap, but she documented every penny of the payout.”
“She left the bank keys inside the balance wheel casing.”
I looked down at the tiny gold timepiece.
The secret wasn't just on the paper.
The mechanism itself was the evidence.
Suddenly, the blast doors behind us groaned.
A hiss of pressurized gas echoed from the ventilation ducts above.
A sweet, chemical odor began filling the room.
Cyanide.
Vanessa’s voice crackled through the intercom system on the wall.
High-pitched.
Hysterical.
“Did you really think the collapse would save you, Luca?”
She laughed through the speaker.
“My father sealed every air vent from the surface!”
“You are going to choke to death in the dark like the rats you are!”
Daniel ran to the ladder.
The heavy iron hatch at the top was welded shut from the outside.
“It's blocked, boss!” Daniel yelled, coughing as the sweet gas reached his lungs.
The gas was getting thicker.
My vision began to blur.
My throat burned like fire.
Luca grabbed my shoulders and pulled me toward the floor where the air was cleanest.
He looked at the sealed hatch above us.
Then he looked at the cracked masonry around the old water pipe.
“Emma... hold your breath,” Luca ordered.
He raised the rifle toward the high-pressure gas main running along the ceiling.
“Luca, no! It will ignite!” Daniel shouted.
Luca looked back at me one last time.
May you like
“Hold your breath.”
He pulled the trigger.
