Chapter 9 - The Siege of Tower 4
The laundry chute was a vertical cylinder of polished stainless steel designed to drop heavy linens down two floors to the private maintenance facility.
“Wrap your arms around my neck, Lily!” I screamed over the deafening roar of automatic gunfire echoing from the bedroom behind us. “Hold on to Mama! Don't let go, no matter what!”
Lily buried her face into my chest, her tiny fingers digging into the fabric of my sweater like claws.
I didn't think about the drop. I didn't think about broken bones. I threw myself backward into the metal chute.
The slide was a terrifying, frictionless blur of dark steel. The friction burned through the elbows of my sweater, the metal screaming against my skin as we tumbled through the vertical shaft.
We hit the industrial canvas sorting bin on floor 76 with a violent, breath-stealing thud.
The wind was knocked clean out of my lungs. Stars exploded across my vision. But the heavy canvas and mounds of dirty laundry absorbed the worst of the impact.
“Are you hurt?” I wheezed, frantically checking Lily’s arms and legs. “Baby, are you hurt?”
“My... my bear,” Lily sobbed, her little voice shaking, but she was whole. Unbroken. Her heart—her newly repaired heart—was thumping rapidly against her ribs, but it was beating strong. Rhythmic. True.
Above us, through the metal chute, the sound of the gun battle in the penthouse was terrifying. Explosions. The staccato rattle of high-velocity rifles. Dominic’s heavy pistol firing back with steady, unrelenting precision.
He’s one man against an army, my mind screamed.
I climbed out of the canvas bin, scooping Lily into my arms.
The maintenance level was bathed in amber emergency backup lights. Water pipes hissed along the ceiling. Just as Dominic had said, behind the two massive industrial water heaters sat a low, heavy steel access hatch with an electronic keypad.
I reached the hatch. The digital lock required a six-digit code.
My hands hovered over the glowing numbers, trembling violently.
What code? He didn't give me a code!
Panic clawed at my throat. Above us, a massive explosion shook the concrete floor, sending dust and debris raining down from the ceiling vents. The gunfire abruptly stopped.
Dead silence descended from the penthouse.
“No, no, no...” I whimpered, tears blinding my eyes. Think, Emma. Think!
What had he said in the diner?
“I always pay my debts.”
“I know your birthday. I know your shoe size.”
I typed in Lily’s birthday: 0-5-1-4. Four digits. The lock beeped an error tone.
Six digits.
I stared at the keypad, my breath hitching as a memory flashed behind my eyes. The cream business card he had slid across the diner table on that first night. The private ten-digit number.
The last six digits of that number.
I punched them in: 1-1-4-7-2-1. The time he stopped at the diner (11:47) and the twenty-one days he spent looking for me.
Click.
The heavy hydraulic bolt retracted with a hiss.
I shoved the heavy steel door open, pushed Lily inside the narrow, reinforced concrete crawlspace, and scrambled in behind her. I pulled the heavy door shut until the magnetic lock engaged from the inside.
A small monitor on the wall of the crawlspace flickered to life, showing the closed-circuit feeds of the maintenance floor we had just left.
Ten seconds later, the heavy door of the maintenance elevator was blown off its hinges with linear shaped charges.
Stepping through the smoke were four men in tactical gear. But they weren't leading the assault.
Behind them walked a man in a bespoke navy cashmere coat, holding a gold-plated semi-automatic pistol.
Victor Vance.
The head of the rival syndicate.
And walking beside him, wearing an explosive harness that had been deactivated and hung loosely over his shoulders, was Marcus.
My ex-husband looked haggard, his face hollowed out by addiction and greed, but his eyes were wide with a sick, triumphant euphoria.
“She came down the chute, Victor!” Marcus shouted, his voice echoing through the audio feed on the monitor. “I told you! The girl always runs to hide! Find her! The Salvatore boss is bleeding out upstairs—we take the kid, we own the whole eastern seaboard!”
My blood turned to pure acid.
Marcus hadn't been forced into this. He had sold us out. He had traded his own flesh and blood to Victor Vance to wipe away his gambling debts and buy his way into a mafia syndicate.
“Check the access points!” Vance barked to his men. “Blow the steel doors! Leave the mother if she resists, but bring me the girl alive!”
Two operators stepped toward the water heaters, raising heavy breaching shotguns toward our steel hatch.
I pulled Lily behind my back, pressing her face against the concrete wall, tears streaming silently down my cheeks. There was nowhere left to run. This was the end of the line.
Then, behind Vance and Marcus, the heavy service elevator doors chimed.
The four tactical operators spun around, raising their rifles.
The elevator doors slid open.
Dominic Salvatore was standing in the elevator car.
He was covered in blood. His charcoal shirt was torn to shreds, a deep crimson gash slicing across his left shoulder, blood dripping from his knuckles. He was unarmed. His hands hung loosely at his sides.
“Dominic!” Vance laughed, raising his gold-plated pistol toward Dominic’s chest. “The great Salvatore prince! You look like hell, boy. You slaughtered nine of my best men upstairs, but you forgot one thing: you’re out of bullets.”
Dominic didn't look at Vance’s gun.
He didn't look at Marcus.
His eyes looked straight past them, directly into the hidden camera lens above the water heaters. He looked right at me.
Even through the grainy black-and-white security monitor, his obsidian eyes burned with an unholy, terrifying fire.
“I don't need bullets, Victor,” Dominic whispered, his voice picking up clearly through the intercom microphone. “I have the city’s gas lines.”
Vance’s smug expression instantly disintegrated. “What?”
Dominic raised his right hand.
In his palm was not a gun.
It was the heavy, red, industrial manual fire-suppression override lever he had ripped out of the penthouse utility wall.
May you like
“You tried to burn me once in a car, Victor,” Dominic murmured, his voice deadly calm. “Let me show you how a Salvatore lights a fire.”
Dominic pulled the lever.
