Chapter 7 - THE DEVIL'S BARGAIN
The heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots surrounded the farmhouse above them. Dante killed his flashlight, plunging the cellar into darkness. Only the pale beams of the headlights slicing through the small, grated window illuminated the dust in the air.
“How many?” Elena whispered, her voice trembling as she pressed her hand against her bleeding side.
“At least ten,” Dante assessed coldly, calculating angles. He handed Maya his backup piece, a compact 9mm. “Do you know how to use this?”
Maya took the cold metal, her hands shaking, but her grip was firm. “Point and pull. I learned a few things growing up.”
A megaphone crackled to life outside. Silas’s raspy, cultured voice echoed across the dead fields.
“Dante, my boy! What a tragic family reunion. Come out with the women, and I promise you a quick, honorable death. Force my men to come in, and I will let them have their fun with your wife and her charming sister before we burn this rotted house to the ground.”
Dante’s eyes burned with a lethal, icy rage. He turned to Elena. “Where does the cellar tunnel lead? The one you used to hide in as kids?”
“It collapses fifty yards out,” Elena said, tears tracking through the dirt on her face. “It drops out near the old silos. But Dante, they’ll see you the moment you emerge.”
“Not if I draw them in,” Dante said. He stripped off his heavy coat. “I’ll bottleneck them at the stairs. Maya, you take Elena. Get out through the tunnel. Get to the car and protect Sophia. Drive.”
“We aren't leaving you to die!” Maya hissed, grabbing his arm.
Dante stopped, looking down at Maya. In the dim light, he saw a fire in her eyes that matched his own. For six years, he had been surrounded by people who wanted his money or his power. But Maya—a girl who had nothing—was willing to stand and die for a family she had just met.
Dante reached out, his thumb gently wiping a smudge of dirt from Maya’s cheek. It was a fiercely intimate gesture. “You take care of my daughter, Maya. Promise me.”
Before Maya could answer, the cellar doors above ground were ripped open. Flashlights pierced the gloom.
“Go!” Dante roared.
He raised his Glock and fired three precise shots up the stairs. Two bodies tumbled down the stone steps in a heap. Chaos erupted. Gunfire shattered the wooden floorboards above them, raining splinters down into the cellar.
Maya grabbed Elena’s uninjured arm. “Come on, Elie! Move!”
They scrambled toward the back of the cellar, tearing away rotting wooden planks to reveal a narrow, dirt-walled root cellar tunnel. Maya pushed her wounded sister in first, crawling behind her as deafening gunfire echoed behind them. Dante was a one-man army, using the stone walls for cover, dropping any man foolish enough to charge down the stairs.
The tunnel was claustrophobic, smelling of damp earth and decay. They crawled on their bellies for what felt like miles, the sounds of the shootout growing muffled. Finally, they hit the collapse point. Maya clawed at the loose dirt and roots, breaking through to the freezing night air.
They scrambled out behind the rusted metal silos, a hundred yards from the farmhouse. The Honda Civic was parked right where they left it, camouflaged by the pines.
Maya practically dragged Elena toward the car. She yanked the door open. Sophia was still curled up in the back seat, miraculously asleep, clutching her red crayon.
“Get in,” Maya ordered Elena, shoving the keys into her sister’s hand. “Lock the doors.”
“Where are you going?” Elena panicked, grabbing Maya’s wrist.
Maya looked back at the farmhouse. Gunfire was still flashing from the windows. “I made a promise to protect this family. That includes him.”
Maya gripped the 9mm and sprinted back into the darkness.
She flanked the house, using the dead brush for cover. Silas’s men were entirely focused on the front of the house, trying to flush Dante out. Maya crept behind a massive oak tree, her heart hammering against her ribs.
She spotted Silas.
He was standing safely behind a black SUV, leaning on his silver-tipped cane, smoking a cigar while he watched his men assault the house. He looked bored.
Maya’s blood boiled. This man had ruined her sister’s life, terrified a five-year-old child, and was about to murder the man she was inexplicably drawing close to.
She stepped out from behind the oak tree, raising the 9mm with both hands, aiming directly at Silas’s chest.
“Tell them to stop!” Maya screamed, her voice cracking the night air.
Silas slowly turned his head. He looked at Maya, the gun trembling slightly in her grip. He didn't look scared. He smiled, taking a slow drag of his cigar.
“Ah. The brave little waitress,” Silas mocked. “You don't have the stomach to pull that trigger, girl.”
“Try me,” Maya snarled.
Suddenly, a massive, heavy hand clamped over Maya’s wrist from behind. She gasped as the gun was wrenched from her grip. One of Silas’s mercenaries had flanked her. The man threw her brutally to the frozen ground, driving a knee into her back and pressing the barrel of an assault rifle to the back of her head.
Silas chuckled, tossing his cigar onto the frost-covered grass. He casually walked over, his cane crunching on the dead leaves. He looked down at Maya.
“Bring her to the front,” Silas ordered the guard. “Let’s see if our young Don will trade his life for a pretty face.”
The guard hauled Maya to her feet, dragging her by her hair to the front of the house.
“Dante!” Silas yelled through the megaphone. “Cease fire! I have a prize for you!”
The gunfire from the house instantly stopped. A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the property.
Silas grabbed Maya’s jaw roughly, tilting her face up toward the shattered front window of the farmhouse. He pressed the barrel of his own silver-plated revolver directly to Maya’s temple.
“Walk out with the ledger and your hands empty, Dante!” Silas roared. “Or I paint the snow with her brains!”
Maya squeezed her eyes shut. “Don't do it, Dante! Shoot him!” she screamed, before Silas backhanded her violently across the face, splitting her lip.
May you like
A moment later, the shattered front door of the farmhouse creaked open.
Dante stepped out into the moonlight. His face was a mask of cold fury, covered in dust and blood. Both of his hands were empty and raised in the air. He had surrendered.
