Chapter 7 - THE PURSUIT
The stairwell was a vertical tunnel of echoing gunshots and flashing muzzle bursts.
Santiago and Vincent pushed upward, taking the stairs two at a time. The air was thick with the smell of cordite and pulverized concrete.
“He’s falling back to the roof!” Vincent yelled, ducking as a heavy-caliber bullet from Leo’s hand cannon blew a chunk of the iron railing into shrapnel right above his head.
“He’s out of men!” Santiago shouted back, leaning heavily against the cold cinderblock wall. His vision was beginning to blur, graying at the edges. Every heartbeat pushed more life out of his torn chest.
They reached the fifth-floor landing. The heavy fire door was dented and scarred, hanging loosely on its hinges.
Vincent kicked it open, his stolen assault rifle raised.
The corridor of the East Wing was pitch black, stripped to the studs. Plastic sheeting hung like ghostly curtains from the ceiling, fluttering in the cold draft coming from the roof access door at the far end of the hall.
“Clear,” Vincent grunted, moving slowly down the hall, his weapon sweeping left and right.
Santiago followed, leaving a smeared, bloody handprint on the wall with every step. He was running on nothing but pure, unadulterated willpower.
As they moved past the stripped-out hospital rooms, Santiago’s boot kicked something metallic on the dusty floor.
He stopped. He looked down.
Resting in the dust, gleaming faintly in the ambient moonlight filtering through the plastic sheeting, was a delicate object.
Santiago slowly knelt down, gritting his teeth against the searing agony in his torso. He picked it up.
It was a rosary.
It wasn't an expensive, diamond-studded mafia trinket. It was cheap, wooden beads strung on a frayed black cord.
Santiago stared at it, the breath catching in his throat.
It was their mother’s rosary. The one she had held on her deathbed. The one she had given to Leo because she knew he needed the grace more than Santiago ever did. Leo had carried it every single day of his life, a twisted talisman of the love he felt he was owed.
“He dropped it,” Santiago whispered.
Vincent stopped, looking back. “What?”
“He never takes this off,” Santiago said, his voice dropping into a hollow, realizing tone. He looked down the dark hallway toward the roof access door. “He didn't kill our father, Vincent.”
Vincent frowned, keeping his rifle raised. “What are you talking about? Leo put a car bomb in your father’s Cadillac six years ago because the old man passed him over.”
“No,” Santiago shook his head, staring at the wooden beads. The memories of that horrific night rushed back with blinding clarity. “Leo is brutal. He is vain. But he is a coward when it comes to God. He would never have carried this rosary if he had innocent blood on his hands. He didn't kill the old man.”
“Then who did?” Vincent demanded.
Before Santiago could answer, a chilling, echoing laugh rumbled from the roof access door.
“Very good, little brother,” Leo’s voice drifted down the dark hallway, amplified by the concrete walls. “It only took you six years to figure it out.”
Santiago stood up, clutching the rosary tightly in his fist.
He pushed past Vincent, walking straight toward the heavy steel door leading to the roof.
“Santiago, wait!” Vincent grabbed his arm. “It’s a kill box up there. Let me go first.”
“He’s my brother, Vincent,” Santiago said quietly, turning to look his best friend in the eye. “He wants the throne. He wants me. You have a son waiting for you in the incinerator room. You go back down. You secure the building. And you get your boy out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you to die,” Vincent said, his voice cracking with fierce loyalty.
“I’m already dead, my friend,” Santiago offered a weak, bloody smile. “But I’m taking him with me. Go. Be a father.”
Vincent stared at him, the weight of the moment pressing down on them both. He slowly lowered his rifle. He stepped forward and pulled Santiago into a fierce, brief embrace, ignoring the blood soaking his own clothes.
“Give him hell, boss,” Vincent whispered.
Vincent turned and sprinted back down the dark hallway, heading for the stairwell to find his son.
Santiago stood alone before the heavy steel door.
He took a deep, ragged breath. He shoved his pistol into the waistband of his ruined hospital pants. He didn't need it.
He pushed the heavy metal bar.
The door burst open.
The freezing Chicago rain immediately battered his face. The roof was a vast, flat expanse of black tar, slick with water. The storm raged around him, lightning flashing across the dark sky, illuminating the towering city skyline.
Standing on the very edge of the roof, his black trench coat whipping violently in the gale, was Leo.
He wasn't holding a gun.
He was holding something much worse.
Dangling over the terrifying, dizzying drop to the alley five stories below, screaming in sheer terror, was a five-year-old boy.
It was Mateo.
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Leo hadn't retreated. He had circled back. While Sarah and the boy were climbing the laundry chute, Leo had intercepted them on the fourth floor.
“Hello, little brother,” Leo roared over the storm, holding the sobbing child effortlessly over the abyss with one massive hand. “I told you. If I can't have the family, neither do you.”
