Chapter 4 - The Ghost of Frankfurt
The lights in the restaurant flickered once, then died entirely.
Emergency backup power kicked in seconds later, bathing the dining room in a sickly, low-voltage amber glow. The ambient jazz music cutting through the ceiling speakers instantly cut out, replaced by an eerie, suffocating silence.
"They moved the timeline up," Marcus muttered, his pistol already raised, tracking the shadows shifting behind the frosted glass of the front entrance.
Dante didn't panic. His movements were terrifyingly fluid, devoid of hesitation. He ripped off his suit jacket, tossing it onto a chair, revealing a tactical harness strapped tightly across his broad chest. He pulled a suppressed pistol from his holster and checked the magazine with a sharp clack.
"Blair," he barked, his voice cutting through the hum of the dying generators. "Can you handle a firearm?"
"No!" I cried, backing away until my heel caught the edge of a velvet booth. "I pour wine, Mr. Vance! I don't shoot people!"
"Well, consider tonight your crash course," he said, snatching a spare Glock from Marcus's tactical belt and sliding it across the polished hardwood floor. It skidded to a halt inches from my sneakers. "Because the men coming through that front door aren't here to negotiate a treaty. They are here to clean up the mess your old friends left behind."
The heavy glass double doors at the front of the restaurant shattered inward. A cascade of crystal shards glittered under the amber lights as three masked figures clad in tactical black gear poured into the main dining floor. Muzzle flashes instantly lit up the room, the deafening crump-crump-crump of suppressed submachine guns chewing through tables, chairs, and expensive upholstery.
Marcus returned fire immediately, dropping the lead assailant with a clean shot to the chest before diving behind the mahogany bar.
"Move!" Dante grabbed my arm with a grip like iron, yanking me upright and shoving me toward the service kitchen doors.
We sprinted through the swinging doors just as a volley of bullets shredded the wall where I had been sitting a second ago. The kitchen was dark, smelling of stainless steel, old grease, and lingering garlic. My chest heaved. Every breath burned like fire.
"Where are we going?" I gasped, ducking as a stray round punched clean through the metal pantry door.
"The freight elevator," Dante said, keeping me pinned against his side as he cleared the prep stations with sweeping arcs of his pistol. "It leads down to the underground transit tunnels. Built during the prohibition era. It’s the only way out of this block without walking into a crossfire."
"And if they're waiting down there?"
Dante stopped at the back corner, punching a heavy sequence into a keypad hidden behind a hanging rack of pots. A heavy steel panel slid open in the floor, revealing a dark, steep stairwell descending into the damp subterranean dark.
He turned to me, his dark eyes fierce, stripping away any lingering doubt about who he was. "Then we kill them, Blair. Just like we did in Frankfurt."
May you like
I froze. The name hung in the damp air like a lightning strike.
He didn't wait for me to answer. He pushed me down the stairs into the dark, stepping down right behind me and slamming the heavy steel hatch shut above our heads.
