Page 25 of Betrayal of the Mafia Rebel
My boot comes down on the Bellanti-issue micro-tracker. Plastic splinters. Circuitry crunches into dead fragments beneath my sole. The blinking red light dies.
Catalina stands frozen by the table. Ripe figs and dark honey spike the freezing air. She looks like she expects to die here. HerAunt Maria died for running. Her face says she thinks this is the end of the line.
She is wrong. I'll paint these brick walls with Bellanti blood before a single one of them breathes her air.
My hand wraps around her bicep. The grip is iron. I yank her flush against my chest. Her body slams into my tactical vest. Heat sears through the layers of our clothing. She's small against my frame. A delicate thing I'm going to keep behind a wall of my own violence. Forever.
"Get behind the boiler." My voice is a low, guttural growl. It echoes off the slick, algae-covered bricks. “Don't move. Don't speak. You stay in the dark until I come for you."
She grips my forearms. Her fingers dig into the heavy muscle of my arms. She doesn't argue. She doesn't reach for the sharp tongue she uses as armor. She just nods once. Terrifying trust.
I shove her gently behind the massive, rusted iron boiler tank anchored to the far wall. The shadows swallow her.
The outer door hinges shriek. The heavy thud of a breaching ram echoes through the corridor. They're breaking the deadbolt.
My hand drops to my thigh holster. The cold, familiar weight of my customized Sig Sauer fills my palm. I rack the slide. The metallic clack is deafening in the tight space. I reach up and smash the glass bulb of the single overhead light with the butt of the gun.
Total blackness descends.
The speakeasy drops into black. The damp chill of the subterranean air crawls over my skin. The oily bite of my gear cuts through the musty odor of river water and ancient dirt.
The deadbolt snaps. The iron door crashes open and slams against the stone wall.
"Spread out. Find the bitch. Put a bullet in her head and grab the bag."
The command is barked in a thick, flat-vowel Chicago accent. Bellanti muscle. Disposable thugs sent to do the dirty work of a coward family.
Four sets of heavy boots cross the threshold. Tactical flashlights cut through the darkness. Crisp white beams cut across the brick walls, catching the river mist hanging in the freezing air.
They're hunting my woman.
Mine.
Something inside me snaps its leash. Dominic kept me leashed for twenty years. Kept his volatile little brother out of the worst of the meat grinder. I hated him for it. I raged against that cage. The grief I swallowed as a kid never got cried out. It crystallized. It turned into hot, restless violence with nowhere to land.
Now, I understand the cage. I understand the need to lock the world away from the thing you cherish. I'm going to build a fortress around Catalina Bellanti. I'm going to become the wall.
I slide silently along the slick brick wall. The dark swallows my tactical gear. The first flashlight beam sweeps past my boots.
I step into the light.
The lead thug jerks his weapon toward me. He never gets the chance to pull the trigger.
My left hand clamps over his face. The leather of my tactical gloves bites into his jaw. I drive him backward with every pound of weight I have. His skull cracks against the solid stone wall with a sickening, wet crunch. His body goes limp. The flashlight drops from his hand and spins across the stone floor, throwing wild light up the bricks.
"Contact!" one of them screams.
Gunfire erupts. Concussive blasts rip through the tight tunnel. Muzzle flashes strobe in the dark, white and yellow.Chunks of ancient brick explode around my head. Shrapnel rains down on my shoulders.
I don't flinch. I don't take cover.
I raise the Sig and fire twice. Center mass. Both rounds hit. The thug drops like a stone, clutching his chest. His blood sprays across the rusted iron of the boiler tank. Blood-iron floods the air. It buries the river underneath.
Two left.
They panic. The raw, primal brutality of the counter-attack shatters their tactical discipline. They expected a terrified, unarmed woman cowering in the dark. They got the wrong man.
One of them sprays bullets toward the boiler on instinct, hunting for the woman.
