Chapter 6 - WHERE PURPLE CRAYONS LIVE
Maya dropped to her knees, tearing the faded rug back. The rhythmic thumping from the apartment below was deliberate. Tap-tap, pause, tap-tap.
Dante kept his gun leveled at the floorboards, his body rigid. “Who lives downstairs?”
“Mrs. Gable. She’s eighty years old and deaf,” Maya whispered, panic rising in her throat. She pressed her ear to the wood. The tapping wasn't random; it was a distress signal. “Silas’s men. They must have bypassed the cameras and tracked us on the street.”
Dante’s eyes darkened. “Pack the child. We have three minutes before they breach the stairs.”
Maya didn't argue. She scooped up a deeply slumbering Sophia, wrapping the heavy quilt around the little girl to muffle the cold. Dante grabbed his duffel bag, slung it over his shoulder, and kicked open the rusted metal window leading to the fire escape. The bitter New York wind howled into the tiny apartment.
They scrambled out into the freezing night just as Maya’s front door splintered with a deafening CRACK. Wood fragments exploded into the room. Dante didn't look back; he grabbed Maya’s hand and hauled her up the rusted iron stairs toward the roof, rather than down to the alley where men would undoubtedly be waiting.
They sprinted across the tar-papered roofs of Brooklyn, jumping the narrow gaps between the dilapidated tenement buildings. Dante moved with the lethal grace of an apex predator, while Maya, fueled by pure adrenaline, kept Sophia tight against her chest.
They finally dropped into a dark, garbage-strewn alley three blocks away. Dante hot-wired a rusted 1998 Honda Civic parked illegally near a dumpster. The engine choked to life, and they sped into the labyrinth of the city.
“Where to?” Dante demanded, his eyes scanning the rearview mirror for headlights.
Maya caught her breath, hugging Sophia tighter. “L-F. Lavender Farm. When Eliana and I were kids, our foster parents would lock us in the basement. Eliana used to tell me stories about an abandoned lavender farm in upstate New York where we could hide forever. She called it the place where the purple crayons live, because the fields looked like they were colored with them.”
Dante gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. “Is it a real place?”
“Yes. The Hudson Valley. We actually ran away there once when I was ten. We hid in the old silos for two days before the police found us.” Maya looked at the brass key Dante had tossed onto the dashboard. “If she left the ledger in Grand Central, she’s hiding at the farm, waiting for you to find it and figure it out.”
“We skip the locker,” Dante decided instantly, swerving onto the interstate heading north. “Silas is probably watching Grand Central. If we have Elena, the ledger doesn't matter. She is all that matters.”
The drive took two agonizing hours. The city lights faded into the dark, sprawling forests of upstate New York. The Honda’s heater was broken, and the cold bit into their bones. Dante glanced over at Maya. She was shivering violently but hadn't complained once, her entire focus on keeping Sophia warm. Dante felt a strange knot in his chest—a profound respect for this young woman who had been dragged into a mafia war and hadn't broken.
They turned off the main highway onto a fractured, overgrown dirt road. The skeletal remains of a massive, rotted wooden sign read: OAKWOOD LAVENDER.
Dante killed the headlights, navigating by the pale moonlight. He parked the car behind a thick thicket of pine trees. The sprawling farmhouse was a decaying silhouette against the night sky, its roof sagging, surrounded by acres of dead, frozen brush.
“Stay in the car,” Dante ordered, racking the slide of his Glock. “Lock the doors. If I’m not back in ten minutes, or if you hear shooting, you drive away and never look back.”
“No,” Maya said fiercely, unlocking her door. “She’s my sister. I’m not leaving you to do this alone. Sophia will be safe locked in the car in the dark.”
Dante looked at her, seeing the iron will in her hazel eyes. He nodded once.
They crept through the frozen, dead lavender fields, the dry stalks snapping quietly under their boots. The farmhouse was completely silent. Dante kicked the rotted back door open, sweeping the kitchen with his flashlight and his gun. Dust motes danced in the beam of light.
“Elie?” Maya called out, a desperate whisper. “Eliana, it’s me. It’s Maya.”
A loud crash echoed from beneath them. The cellar.
Dante signaled Maya to stay back as he moved toward the heavy wooden door in the floor. He yanked it open, shining the flashlight down the steep, stone stairs.
Curled in the corner, clutching a piece of jagged iron pipe, was Elena.
She looked nothing like the polished, elegant billionaire’s wife. Her expensive coat was torn, her face was smeared with dirt and dried blood, and her dark eyes were wide with animalistic terror.
“Elena,” Dante exhaled, lowering his weapon and rushing down the stairs.
Elena flinched violently, raising the pipe. “Stay back! Dante, you shouldn't have come! He’s tracking—”
Then, Elena saw Maya standing at the top of the stairs. The iron pipe slipped from Elena’s bruised hands, clattering against the stone floor.
“Maya?” Elena choked on a sob, her tough facade crumbling instantly. “You’re alive? My god, Maya...”
Maya ran down the stairs, throwing her arms around her older sister. They collapsed against the cold cellar wall, weeping into each other’s shoulders. Dante stood back, watching the reunion, overwhelmed by the fierce love his wife had hidden for so long.
“Elena, you’re bleeding,” Dante said, noticing a dark stain spreading on her side.
“It’s a graze,” Elena gasped, wincing as she stood. “Silas’s men caught me at the train station three days ago. I barely got away. Dante, Silas wants to kill you. He wants the empire. I stole the ledger to give to the feds so they would arrest him, but I got cut off.”
“We’re leaving,” Dante said, supporting her waist. “Sophia is in the car. We’re going to disappear.”
Elena froze, her eyes widening in absolute horror. She grabbed Dante’s collar. “No. Dante... my burner phone. The one I left in the toy box for you to find the clues.”
Dante pulled it out. “I have it.”
Elena’s face drained of all color. “Silas put a tracker in it six months ago. I didn't realize it until I left the penthouse. That’s why I abandoned it in the box!”
Suddenly, the blinding glare of high-beam headlights flooded the cellar through the small ground-level window.
May you like
Tires crunched aggressively on the gravel outside. Multiple car doors slammed.
Silas hadn't tracked them through the streets. He had let them lead him right to the prize.
