Chapter 9 - The Hunt Through the Dark
The underground tunnel smelled of damp earth, limestone, and hundred-year-old cedar.
It had been built during Prohibition, a secret escape route running three hundred feet from the basement wine cellar of the main mansion to the detached carriage house at the rear perimeter of the estate.
I stumbled through the subterranean dark, my bare feet bleeding from shards of glass I had stepped on upstairs, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps.
Every muscle in my body screamed in protest. My arm was numb from holding Leo, but I refused to loosen my grip. The baby had stopped crying; he was shivering against my chest, his face buried deep into the crook of my neck, his little heart hammering against mine like a trapped sparrow.
Behind me, far down the brick tunnel, the heavy iron cellar door was kicked off its hinges with a resounding *CLANG*.
Flashlight beams pierced the subterranean mist, sweeping across the curved brick walls.
"She went this way!" a harsh voice shouted in Italian. "Vanezzy wants the boy alive! The girl doesn't matter—put a bullet in her head!"
Fear turned into pure, cold adrenaline.
I ran faster, ignoring the sharp stones digging into my soles, pushing through the suffocating gloom until my hands hit a heavy wooden door secured with an iron latch.
I threw my weight against it. The rusted hinges shrieked in protest, giving way.
I tumbled out onto the wet, greasy concrete floor of the carriage house.
Above me sat four vintage luxury cars, covered in dust sheets. The only light came from the lightning flashing outside through high, grime-streaked transom windows. Rain was pouring through a leak in the roof, drumming a frantic cadence against the tin siding.
I scrambled behind a 1968 Shelby GT500, collapsing onto the concrete, my back pressed against the rear tire.
I raised the Glock, checking the slide with shaking fingers. There were perhaps four or five rounds left in the magazine.
Footsteps entered the carriage house from the tunnel entrance.
Two men stepped into the open garage, their flashlight beams cutting through the darkness, their boots clicking against the concrete. They were dressed in black rain slickers, carrying heavy semi-automatic pistols.
"Come out, little bird," one of them mocked, his voice echoing off the corrugated metal roof. "Dante has a five-million-dollar bounty on your head. Make it easy on yourself. Give up the brat, and I'll make the bullet clean."
I closed my eyes, pressing my forehead against Leo’s soft hair.
*I'm sorry,* I prayed silently. *I'm so sorry, Leo. I tried.*
The beam of a flashlight swept across the front bumper of the Shelby, just three feet from where I was hiding.
A boot crunched on gravel.
The man rounded the corner of the car. The beam of light hit my face, blinding me.
"Found you," he grinned, raising his weapon toward my forehead.
Before I could pull the trigger, the entire front wall of the carriage house exploded.
A massive, armored black Mercedes G-Wagon smashed through the wooden garage doors in an avalanche of splintering timber, flying glass, and screeching metal. The heavy vehicle didn't slow down; it plowed directly into the first gunman, crushing him beneath the bull-bar and pinning him against the concrete wall with a sickening, wet crunch.
The second gunman screamed, turning to fire at the driver’s side window, but the glass was heavy ballistic armor. The bullets simply ricocheted off the surface in harmless golden sparks.
The driver’s door flew open.
Luca Moretti emerged like a storm of vengeance.
He didn't fire a gun. He moved with a speed that defied human biology. In a single stride, he closed the distance between himself and the remaining gunman, his left hand catching the man’s gun wrist, snapping the bones backward with a sharp, sickening *CRACK*.
The man shrieked, dropping the weapon.
Luca grabbed him by the throat, lifting the grown man off his feet with a single arm, and slammed him face-first into the hood of the Shelby right above me.
"Who sent you?" Luca roared, his voice shaking the entire garage.
"V-Vanezzy!" the man choked out, blood pouring from his shattered nose. "Dante... he’s at the private airstrip in South Jersey! He’s waiting for the boy!"
Luca didn't ask another question.
With a brutal, remorseless twist of his wrists, he snapped the man’s neck. The body went limp, sliding off the hood and collapsing onto the concrete floor like a discarded rag.
Silence slammed back down over the carriage house, broken only by the hiss of the G-Wagon’s steaming radiator and the drumming of the rain.
Luca stood over the corpse, chest heaving, his black dress shirt torn, soaked with rain and the blood of other men. In his right hand, he held a heavy tactical combat knife dripping with dark crimson.
He turned slowly, his eyes wild, feral, looking for threats.
Then he saw me.
I was sitting in the puddle of grease and rainwater, clutching Leo to my chest, my emerald gown shredded, my bare feet bloody, my hands trembling violently around the grip of the Glock.
The feral madness vanished from Luca’s face, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated reverence.
He dropped the knife. The steel clattered harmlessly against the concrete.
Luca fell to his knees in the puddle before me, his hands reaching out, hesitating for a fraction of a second as if he were afraid I would vanish if he touched me.
Then he pulled us both into his arms.
The sheer crushing strength of his embrace knocked the breath from my lungs. His face buried into the crook of my neck, right beside Leo’s sleeping head, his massive frame shuddering with deep, silent sobs.
"You're alive," Luca choked out, his voice broken, stripped of all pride and power. "God help me, you're alive."
"I protected him, Luca," I whispered, the gun slipping from my numb fingers, clattering to the floor. My arms wrapped around his broad, soaked shoulders. "I kept him safe."
Luca pulled back slightly, his hands cupping my face with desperate tenderness. His thumbs wiped the blood and grime from my cheeks, his eyes blazing with a dark, terrifying, beautiful devotion.
"You didn't just protect my son, Avery," he whispered, leaning in until his lips brushed against mine with fierce, desperate hunger. "You saved my soul."
The kiss was rough, electric, tasting of rain, salt, and blood. It was the seal of an unbroken vow—a blood-soaked promise that from this moment forward, the entire world stood on one side, and the three of us stood on the other.
He pulled back, his eyes locked onto mine.
May you like
"Dante is at the airstrip," Luca said, rising to his feet and pulling me effortlessly into his arms, carrying both me and Leo against his chest as if we weighed nothing. "It's time we finish this family reunion."
***
