Chapter 5 - THE ESCAPE
Gunfire shattered the penthouse windows.
Lena dove behind the kitchen island, pulling Leo with her. The boy let out a terrified shriek, clapping his hands over his ears.
"Stay down, baby! Look at Mama, look at me!" Lena shouted over the deafening roar of automatic weapons.
Marco was already moving. He fired twice, dropping the first heavily armored intruder, before flipping the heavy dining table for cover. "Go!" Marco roared, tossing Lena the keys to the backup car. "The freight elevator! I’ll hold them!"
"I'm not leaving you!" Lena yelled.
"You have the heir! Move!" Marco fired again, blood spraying across the white walls.
Lena grabbed Leo, hoisting him onto her hip. She scrambled toward the back hallway, keeping her head down. As she reached the freight doors, she looked back. Marco was pinned behind the shattered table, but he met her eyes and gave a single, firm nod.
She slammed the elevator button. The metal doors slid shut just as another volley of bullets tore into the hallway.
When they reached the garage, Lena strapped a sobbing Leo into the backseat of a stolen sedan. Her hands were shaking, but her mind was terrifyingly clear. Vargas was here. Damian had sold her out to the cartel that murdered her family.
She slammed on the gas, tearing out of the garage and disappearing into the rainy night.
Fifteen minutes later, Damian’s black SUV screeched to a halt outside the apartment building. He ignored the flashing police lights in the distance and sprinted up the fire escape, his gun drawn.
He kicked open the ruined penthouse door.
The place was a warzone. Bullet holes riddled the walls. Vargas’s men were gone. Marco lay slumped against the wall, breathing shallowly, bleeding from a shoulder wound.
Damian ignored him, stalking through the apartment. "Lena!" he bellowed.
Nothing. The apartment was empty.
But as he walked past the kitchen island, something caught his eye. Lying on the floor, surrounded by shattered glass, was a small, bright red toy fire truck.
Damian knelt, picking it up. It was heavy in his hand. Real. Tangible proof of the son he had never known. A profound, agonizing ache ripped through his chest. He had spent his life building an empire of blood, and in one night, his wife had shown him exactly what it was worth: nothing.
His phone buzzed. It was Tommy.
"Boss," Tommy said frantically. "Vargas didn't find her. But we tracked her car. She’s heading for the old railyard."
Damian crushed the toy truck in his hand. "Get there before Vargas does."
At the railyard, Lena parked the sedan behind a rusted train car. She told Leo to hide under the blanket in the back. She stepped out into the pouring rain, her gun raised.
Headlights cut through the dark. Celeste’s car pulled up.
The driver’s door opened, but it wasn't Celeste who stepped out.
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It was Hector Vargas. The man with the jagged scar. He was holding Celeste by the hair, a gun pressed to her temple. In his other hand, he held Damian’s black leather ledger.
"Hello, little bird," Vargas smiled, his teeth gleaming in the dark. "Your husband sends his regards."
