Chapter 7 - THE TRAIN CAR STANDOFF
The black SUV tore through the station's perimeter fence, tires screeching wildly on the wet concrete. It slammed into a luggage cart, sending sparks flying, before skidding to a violent halt just ten feet from the unhitched sleeper car.
Charles Whitmore jumped backward, raising his gun toward the vehicle.
The driver’s side door burst open, and Dominic Romano stepped out into the pouring rain. He didn't look like a wealthy businessman anymore; he looked exactly like the mob boss his father had trained him to be.
He raised a heavy shotgun and racked the pump. The sound cut through the rain like thunder.
“Step away from the train, Charles,” Dominic ordered, his voice echoing across the empty platform.
Charles grabbed the edge of the shattered train door, using the steel frame for cover. He pointed his gun directly at me and Leo, who were huddled at the far end of the narrow corridor inside.
“Drop the weapon, Dominic!” Charles shouted back, his polished composure slipping into raw panic. “I have the boy! You pull that trigger, and I put a bullet in your brother’s head!”
Leo whimpered, burying his face into my shoulder. I wrapped my body around him, placing myself between the twelve-year-old boy and the gun barrel.
Answer one: Dominic didn't wait at the next stop; he followed the extraction protocol when the train didn't leave. Open two: How does Dominic disarm Charles without getting Leo killed, and who are the "clients" Charles is working for?
Dominic didn't lower the shotgun, but he stopped advancing. The standoff was absolute. If Dominic fired, Charles’s reflexes would pull his own trigger.
“You don't have a way out, Charles,” Dominic yelled over the rain. “My men have the station surrounded. Who are you working for? The Moretti family? The Russians? Who is paying you to steal my bloodline?”
Charles let out a bitter, wet laugh. He didn't look at Dominic. Instead, he looked over Dominic’s shoulder, toward the rear passenger door of the SUV.
“Tell him, Frances,” Charles yelled.
The reversal struck me dumb.
The back door of the SUV slowly opened. An umbrella popped out, followed by a pair of sensible, low-heeled shoes.
Aunt Frances stepped out onto the platform.
Dominic didn't turn around, keeping his shotgun trained on Charles, but his eyes widened in confusion. “Aunt Frances? Get back in the car. It’s not safe.”
“Oh, Dominic, you always were so protective,” Frances said. Her voice was no longer the frail, trembling tone of an elderly aunt. It was cold, sharp, and dripping with authority.
Frances walked around the SUV and stood beside Dominic. She didn't look at the guns. She looked at Charles.
“You were supposed to do this quietly, Charles,” Frances scolded him gently, as if correcting a clumsy waiter.
“He showed up early, Frances!” Charles argued. “The plan went south!”
Dominic finally lowered the shotgun an inch, staring at his aunt in sheer disbelief. “Frances? You’re the client? You hired Charles to steal Leo?”
“I didn't steal him, dear,” Frances said calmly. “I simply reclaimed the family asset your mother so foolishly gave away.”
“Why?” Dominic demanded, his voice breaking. “You’re my family. You helped raise me!”
“Because your father was a brute, and you are too soft,” Frances said, her eyes flashing with a lifetime of repressed ambition. “For forty years, I sat at that dining table while the men in this family ran the empire into the ground with their petty turf wars and sentimental weaknesses. I arranged for Marco Rossi to find out your father’s location eleven years ago. I orchestrated the hit.”
The truth landed with devastating weight. Rossi pulled the trigger, but Aunt Frances had loaded the gun.
“And now,” Frances continued smoothly, “I am taking control. Once Charles secures the boy, we will eliminate you, Dominic. I will raise Leo to be the boss this family deserves, and I will rule through him as regent.”
Frances reached into her designer handbag and pulled out a small, silver revolver. She aimed it directly at Dominic’s back.
“Drop the shotgun, Dominic,” Frances ordered. “Or I will shoot you where you stand, and Charles will kill the boy.”
Dominic stood perfectly still. He was trapped. Betrayed by his own blood.
He slowly lowered the shotgun, letting it clatter onto the wet pavement.
“Good,” Frances smiled. “Charles, get the boy and the maid out of the train.”
Charles smirked and stepped fully into the train corridor, lowering his gun slightly as he reached out to grab Leo’s arm.
That was his mistake. He forgot I was a housemaid.
I knew this train car. I had scrubbed these narrow compartments on private charters for years. I knew that the heavy metal fire extinguisher mounted on the wall behind me wasn't bolted down; it rested on a quick-release hook.
As Charles reached for Leo, I grabbed the heavy red cylinder off the wall and swung it with every ounce of strength in my body.
The heavy metal base connected squarely with Charles’s wrist.
A sickening crack echoed through the corridor.
Charles screamed, his gun dropping to the floor.
I didn't hesitate. I kicked the gun out the open door onto the platform, grabbed Leo by the collar, and slammed the heavy compartment door shut between us and the howling attorney.
The cliffhanger dropped instantly.
As Charles’s gun slid across the wet concrete platform and stopped at Dominic’s feet, Aunt Frances panicked. She cocked the hammer of her silver revolver to shoot Dominic.
But a second gunshot rang out first.
Frances gasped, her eyes going wide. She dropped the revolver and fell to her knees, clutching her shoulder as blood bloomed across her expensive coat.
Dominic spun around to see who had fired.
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Standing at the edge of the platform, leaning heavily against the brick wall, was Marco Rossi. He was bleeding from the chest, his gun smoking in his hand.
“Nobody,” Rossi coughed, spitting blood, “touches Eleanor’s kids.”
