Chapter 6 - THE DRAINAGE TUNNEL~1,100 words
BOOM!
The concussion of the breaching charge blew the outer pantry door inward with a shower of splintered wood and flying drywall.
Thick gray smoke poured into the small storage room, choking the air and stinging their eyes.
“Go!” Luca yelled over the ringing in his ears.
Luna didn't hesitate. She bolted out of the panic room, ducking low beneath the floating cloud of smoke, her sneakers skidding across the debris-littered linoleum of the industrial kitchen.
Footsteps crunched behind them.
“There they are! In the kitchen!” a harsh voice shouted in Russian through a tactical respirator.
Pop-pop-pop!
Suppressed gunfire chewed through the stainless-steel prep tables, sending sparks flying into the dark.
Luca spun around, raising his Beretta, and fired twice into the smoke. A heavy thud echoed against the tile floor as one of the mercenaries went down, but the second attacker pressed forward, lifting an assault rifle toward Luna’s back.
“Luna, down!” Luca roared.
He lunged forward, tackling her to the ground just as a burst of bullets shredded the air right where her head had been a second before.
Luca rolled over her, shielding her body with his own, and fired his final two rounds into the chest of the second mercenary. The man staggered backward, crashing hard against the walk-in refrigerator door before collapsing in a heap.
Silence slammed back down over the kitchen, broken only by the hiss of a ruptured water pipe overhead.
“Luca! Are you hit?” Luna cried, scrambling out from beneath him.
“I’m okay—keep moving!” Luca panted, clutching his bleeding shoulder as he staggered to his feet. “The cellar door is right through here.”
He grabbed her hand, dragging her toward the heavy wooden trapdoor built into the floor near the walk-in coolers.
Luca threw the brass latch, hauled the heavy oak door open, and revealed a steep, stone staircase leading down into the subterranean darkness of the old Moretti wine cellar.
They scrambled down the stone steps, the smell of damp earth, old oak barrels, and aging vintage wine replacing the acrid stench of cordite.
At the far end of the cellar, hidden behind a row of ancient mahogany racks filled with rare Chianti, was a low iron gate covered in rust.
“This is it,” Luca said, pulling a heavy brass key from his tuxedo pocket and shoving it into the archaic lock.
The rusted mechanism groaned, but the bolt finally slid back with a loud clack.
Luca pushed the iron gate open, revealing a narrow, brick-lined drainage tunnel that sloped downward toward the city’s underground stormwater system. Cool, damp air rushed up from the dark abyss.
“Go, Luna. Crawl through,” Luca urged, steadying her as she slipped through the narrow iron opening.
“What about you?” she asked, looking back with wide, terrified eyes. “You can’t crawl through there with your shoulder bleeding like that!”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Luca lied, offering her a reassuring, bloody smile. “Just follow the brick path for three hundred yards. It leads out to the old boathouse on the river. My security detail will be waiting there.”
“Luca, I’m not leaving you behind,” she said, her voice cracking with fierce resolve.
“Luna, listen to me!” Luca’s voice brooked no argument. He grabbed her shoulders, his green eyes locked onto hers with absolute finality. “If I don't stay behind and secure this iron gate from the inside, they will follow us through the tunnel. Within two minutes, we’ll both be dead. Go!”
Before she could protest, he gently pushed her into the dark tunnel and slammed the heavy iron gate shut between them.
“Luca!” she screamed, slamming her palms against the rusted bars.
“I love you, Luna!” his voice echoed through the damp brickwork. “Now run!”
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Footsteps echoed from the top of the cellar stairs. The mercenaries had found the wine cellar.
Luna choked back a sob, turned around in the cramped brick tube, and began to crawl as fast as she could into the cold, black unknown.
