Chapter 9 - THE RIVER TUNNELS
Elena fired.
The shotgun blast shredded the wooden chair where Lily had been tied a second before.
Wood splinters rained down across the floor like shrapnel.
Gabriel grabbed Olivia and Lily in a single motion, hauling both of them behind the steel frame of the crashed SUV.
"Down!" Gabriel barked, pressing them flat against the cold tires.
Nero launched himself down the iron stairs with a furious, echoing roar.
Elena panicked.
She swung the heavy barrel toward the charging dog.
Click.
The shotgun was empty.
Elena threw the weapon down in terror and bolted through the second-floor fire door into the darkness of the river corridor.
Nero tore through the doorway right behind her.
"Stay with Lily," Gabriel ordered, reloading his magazine with one smooth motion.
"Gabriel, wait!" Olivia cried, grabbing his uninjured wrist.
"Don't go up there alone!"
"She’s cornered," Gabriel said, his dark eyes burning with cold fire.
"And she knows the river tunnels lead to the private docks."
He looked at Lily, whose small hands were clutching her mother’s coat.
"Lock the doors of the van from the inside," Gabriel instructed Olivia.
"Matteo will be here in three minutes."
"I am not sitting in a van while you bleed to death," Olivia said, her voice shaking with fierce defiance.
She picked up the 9mm pistol from the concrete floor.
"She tried to kill my child."
Gabriel stared at her.
For a heartbeat, something like profound admiration flickered across his rugged face.
"Stay behind me," he conceded.
He lifted Lily onto his uninjured shoulder, carrying her effortlessly against his chest.
They moved quickly through the rear fire door into the abandoned municipal freight tunnels beneath the Chicago River.
The air here was damp, freezing, and thick with the stench of stagnant river water and rotting timbers.
Water dripped from the vaulted brick ceiling in rhythmic, hollow beats.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Footsteps splashed in the dark ahead.
Rapid. Frantic.
A woman’s ragged breathing echoed off the curving brick walls.
Gabriel moved silently, his shoes making no sound on the wet stones.
Fifty yards deep into the tunnel, the passage opened into an old subterranean pump room.
Rusted iron valves rose from the floor like twisted sculptures.
A single yellow emergency bulb dangled from an overhead wire, swaying gently in the cold draft.
Standing in the center of the pool of yellow light was Elena.
She had backed against a rusted iron drainage grate that emptied into the black river.
Her hands were empty.
Her clothes were soaked.
Nero stood ten feet from her, lowered in a stalking crouch, teeth bared in a silent, deadly snarl.
"Call him off, Gabriel," Elena pleaded, her voice trembling.
The arrogance was gone.
Only the naked terror of a cornered animal remained.
"Call off the beast."
Gabriel stepped into the yellow light, setting Lily down gently behind Olivia.
"Where is Moretti, Elena?" Gabriel asked.
Elena laughed, a wet, choking sound.
"Victor left me forty minutes ago," she sneered, wiping blood from her mouth with the back of her wrist.
"He took the speedboat from Slip 4."
"He's heading for the Indiana shoreline."
"He sacrificed you," Olivia said from the shadows, stepping forward with the gun lowered at her side.
Elena looked at Olivia with pure, undiluted hatred.
"He sacrificed everyone!" Elena screamed, her voice bouncing violently off the wet brick.
"Julian sacrificed Daniel! Gabriel sacrificed me!"
"Julian loved you, Elena," Gabriel said softly.
"He died trying to protect your name."
"He was weak!" Elena shrieked, her face contorting in madness.
"He wanted to turn the family legitimate! He wanted to pay taxes! He wanted to buy groceries like a common peasant!"
She lunged forward, her hand pulling a small, ceramic push-dagger from her boot.
"I won't let a maid take what belongs to me!"
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Before she could take two steps, Nero lunged.
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