Chapter 4
Flames roared through the ventilation shafts of the subterranean parking garage.
Thick, choking black smoke billowed toward the ceiling.
Dante pulled Emma behind a reinforced concrete pillar just as a barrage of automatic gunfire chewed into the brickwork above them.
Dust and concrete shrapnel rained down on their shoulders.
“Who are they?” Emma coughed, shielding her face with her jacket sleeve.
“My brother’s cleanup crew,” Dante gritted out, drawing a heavy SIG Sauer pistol from his holster with fluid, lethal grace. “Julian wants the seat, and he wants every witness erased.”
“Your own brother?” Emma stared at him in disbelief.
“Blood means nothing in our world, Miss Parker,” Dante replied coldly. “Only power.”
A masked gunman rounded the corner thirty feet away, raising a suppressed rifle.
Dante fired twice.
The assailant dropped instantly without a sound.
“Stay behind me,” Dante ordered, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward a heavy steel fire exit marked DANGER - ALARM WILL SOUND.
They burst through the door into a damp, dimly lit service corridor.
Emergency red lights pulsed overhead, painting the concrete walls in an eerie, bloody glow.
Footsteps echoed from the stairwell ahead of them.
More enforcers were cutting off their escape.
“This way,” Emma whispered, her legal mind mapping the architectural layout of downtown high-rises. “Service elevators usually connect to the old pneumatic mail tunnels beneath fifty-third.”
Dante glanced at her, surprised. “How do you know that?”
“I read the city zoning archives for a property law seminar,” Emma snapped, already pulling open a heavy metal maintenance hatch. “Now move!”
They slipped inside the narrow service shaft just as heavy boots pounded down the corridor they had just vacated.
The tunnel was cramped, smelling of damp earth and old iron.
They crawled through the darkness for what felt like hours, the distant sounds of explosions muffled by layers of earth and stone.
Finally, Emma pushed open a rusted grate that opened directly into an abandoned subway maintenance bay.
The cool night air rushed over them.
Dante helped her climb out onto the concrete tracks.
He holstered his weapon, his chest heaving slightly beneath his charcoal suit.
“You’re full of surprises, Miss Parker,” Dante said, brushing soot from his lapel.
“I want to go home,” Emma said, her voice trembling as the adrenaline began to fade.
Dante stopped walking.
May you like
He turned to face her under the dim light of a flickering streetlamp above the subway grate.
“You don’t have a home anymore,” Dante said flatly. “Julian’s men ransacked your apartment twenty minutes ago. If you go back there, you’re dead.”
