Chapter 5 - Blood in the Hallway
The mahogany door didn't just open this time—it splintered inward in a storm of lead and flying timber.
Marcus fired two more rounds down the dim corridor, the deafening muzzle flashes casting strobing shadows across the antique wallpaper of Room 206. A heavy thud followed in the hallway—someone’s body hitting the carpeted floor.
“How many?” I shouted over the ringing in my ears, grabbing the heavy leather ledger off the desk and shoving it inside my coat.
“At least four!” Marcus yelled back, crouching behind an overturned sofa that he and Emily had dragged across the entrance. “They’ve got submachine guns with suppressors. Professional cleaners!”
Antonio didn't panic. The old man moved with surprising speed for someone supposedly broken by age, grabbing my arm with a grip that still held remnants of his former strength.
“The service elevator shaft,” my father rasped, pointing toward the hidden stairwell he had emerged from. “It drops straight down into the hotel’s old boiler rooms. There’s an exit leading directly to the river docks.”
“And Vincent?” I asked, glancing around the room.
The traitorous consigliere was already gone, having slipped through the hidden doorway the second the first shot was fired, using our chaos as his cover.
“Let him run,” Antonio spat, his eyes cold. “Vincent was always a survivor before he was a soldier. Right now, we focus on getting out of this building alive.”
Emily was already reloading her pistol with calm, practiced efficiency—a movement that proved she had spent a lot more time in safehouses than she ever had waiting tables at The Sterling.
“Move, move!” Emily hissed, urging us toward the narrow, pitch-black spiral staircase.
Marcus covered our retreat, laying down suppressive fire through the ruined doorway as enemy rounds chewed through the plaster walls, showering us in white dust and choking debris.
We plunged down the spiral stairs into the damp, freezing darkness below. The air smelled of old iron, stagnant river water, and coal dust. The descent felt endless, every step jarring my ribs where the poison had left a dull, throbbing ache.
We hit the concrete floor of the sub-basement with a heavy thud.
The emergency lighting down here was dead. Total, suffocating blackness surrounded us, broken only by the thin beam of the tactical flashlight Marcus pulled from his belt.
“This way,” Antonio muttered, leading us through a maze of rusted industrial pipes and towering brick boilers that hummed with a low, bone-rattling vibration.
“How do you know this building so well?” I asked, keeping one hand on my coat where the heavy ledger rested against my chest, my eyes scanning the shadows for any sign of Vincent or the cleanup crew.
“I engineered this entire block thirty years ago, Lorenzo,” my father muttered over his shoulder, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “Every safehouse, every escape tunnel, every bribe paid to the city inspectors—it all ran through my desk. You think I’d build a fortress without a back door?”
We scrambled around a massive iron generator, heading toward a heavy steel fire door marked with faded yellow paint.
Suddenly, a flashlight beam cut through the darkness twenty feet ahead of us.
“Found ’em!” a rasped voice shouted from the gloom.
Marcus didn't hesitate. He raised his pistol and fired twice. A muffled yell echoed down the corridor, followed by the clatter of a dropped weapon.
“Keep moving!” Marcus roared, shoving us toward the steel door.
I threw my weight against the crash bar. The heavy door gave way with a screech of rusted hinges, and a blast of cold, wet Chicago wind hit our faces, carrying the heavy scent of the river.
We tumbled out into the narrow alleyway behind The Sterling, slick cobblestones glistening under the gray drizzle of the midnight rain.
Parked directly in front of us in the shadows was a nondescript black armored SUV, its engine idling quietly.
The driver’s side door swung open, and a figure stepped out into the rain, holding a heavy wool umbrella.
It wasn't an assassin.
It was a young girl, no more than ten years old, wearing a oversized yellow raincoat that hung down to her knees. In her small hands, she wasn't holding a weapon—she was holding a silver pocket watch identical to the one my father had left on the desk.
May you like
She looked straight past Marcus, past my father, and locked her bright, fearless eyes directly onto me.
“Grandpa said you’d be slow,” the girl said, her voice completely calm against the backdrop of distant sirens. “Get in. The police are five minutes away, and the people behind us are already blocking the bridge.”
