THE DEVIL'S SAFE PLACE

We emerged from the subterranean bunker back onto the rusted main floor of the warehouse.

Gabriel supported Clara's left arm, while one of our tactical medics held her right, moving as quickly as her weakened legs would allow.

Dante walked two paces ahead of us, his rifle raised, scanning the shadows between the towering grain silos.

Suddenly, a deafening mechanical screech tore through the cavernous space.

The massive steel roll-up garage doors at the front of the warehouse slammed down to the concrete floor with a thunderous crash.

Floodlights mounted on the high steel girders flared to life, blinding us in a violent glare of white halogen light.

"Drop your weapons, Valenti!" a frantic, shrill voice screamed through the echoing chamber.

Standing on an elevated catwalk thirty feet above the warehouse floor stood Cameron Hale.

He looked unhinged.

His designer suit was disheveled, his silk tie loosened, and his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

Clutched in his trembling hands was a high-powered tactical rifle aimed directly at my chest.

Beside him stood six private security mercenaries wearing gray contractor uniforms, all with their weapons trained on our small group.

Behind the catwalk, standing in the shadows near an emergency exit ladder, was Victor Sloane.

Sloane was holding an open leather briefcase, watching the scene unfold below with the cold detachment of a man observing an ant farm.

"Cameron, stand down!" Dante roared, stepping directly into Cameron's line of fire, shielding both Clara and me with his massive frame.

"You are surrounded by federal assets and three dozen Valenti soldiers outside those walls."

"You have nowhere to go."

"Shut up!" Cameron shrieked, his voice cracking with hysterical rage.

"Shut up! You ruined everything, Valenti!"

"My father was going to be the next Governor!"

"I was going to the United States Senate!"

"Everything was planned!"

Cameron leaned over the rusted iron railing, his eyes wild as he locked his gaze onto me.

"And you, Nora!"

"You ungrateful, pathetic little bitch!"

"I gave you an apartment on Gold Coast!"

"I bought you clothes!"

"I kept you safe from Sloane's hitmen for two years!"

"All you had to do was sit in the apartment, look pretty, and act like a good little girlfriend!"

"Instead, you ran into a mob club and handed our ledger to the Devil himself!"

I stepped out from behind Dante's shoulder, refusing to let him hide me any longer.

I walked three paces forward, standing dead center in the blinding glare of the floodlights, staring up at the man who had tormented my soul for seven hundred days.

"You didn't keep me safe, Cameron," I said, my voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls with crystal clarity.

"You kept me captive."

"You isolated me because you were terrified."

"You are not a statesman."

"You are not a leader."

"You are just a frightened, pathetic little boy hiding behind your father's stolen money and Victor Sloane's shadow."

Cameron's face contorted into pure, demonic fury.

"I loved you!" he screamed, his finger tightening violently against the trigger.

"And if I can't have you, nobody will!"

Before Cameron's finger could complete the trigger pull, the dull crack of a suppressed shot echoed from the catwalk above.

Cameron screamed, dropping the rifle as a bullet tore through his right shoulder from behind.

Victor Sloane stepped out of the shadows, a smoking pistol in his hand.

Cameron collapsed onto the iron grating, clutching his bleeding shoulder in utter disbelief.

"Victor?" Cameron gasped, coughing blood onto the catwalk.

"What... what are you doing?"

"You have become an unpredictable liability, Cameron," Sloane said smoothly, not even glancing down at the bleeding young man.

"Your emotional instability has compromised twenty years of investments."

Sloane turned toward Dante, raising his pistol toward the ceiling.

"Valenti!" Sloane shouted down.

"I am leaving through the river barge slip."

"Take the boy."

"Take the woman."

"Give me twenty minutes to clear the harbor, and the master server containing the offshore accounts is yours."

Dante didn't answer with words.

He raised his rifle, aiming through the iron grating of the catwalk, and fired a single round through Sloane's right knee.

Sloane shrieked in agony, his leg collapsing beneath him as his pistol clattered over the railing and plummeted thirty feet to the concrete floor below.

"Gabriel, breach the catwalk!" Dante commanded.

Before the contractor mercenaries could react to their fallen employers, red laser sights painted their chests from the high ventilation windows.

Valenti snipers had already taken the high ground.

"Weapons on the deck!" Gabriel's voice thundered through the warehouse.

The six mercenaries immediately unslung their rifles, kicking them across the grating and dropping to their knees with their hands behind their heads.

Dante walked slowly toward the base of the iron staircase, his dark eyes fixed on the whimpering figure of Cameron Hale crawling across the catwalk.

"It's over, Cameron," Dante said, his voice echoing like the judgment of God.