Chapter 6 - THE FORGOTTEN BAKERY
"Dante!" Elina screamed, her voice echoing down the damp, earthen tunnel.
Dante didn't fall. Through sheer force of will, he pushed himself off the stone archway, his face pale and contorted in pain. He gripped the heavy iron handle of the secret door and yanked it shut with a definitive, echoing thud, immediately sliding the rusted iron deadbolt into place.
Muffled shouts and the heavy pounding of fists against stone vibrated through the wall from the cellar, but the door held.
"I'm fine," Dante gritted out, breathing heavily as he leaned against the cold dirt wall. He pressed a hand to his left side, just below his ribs. Dark, warm blood was seeping rapidly through the expensive fabric of his white dress shirt. "It was a through-and-through. We have to keep moving before they realize where this tunnel exits."
"You're bleeding everywhere," Elina argued, shifting Leo to her hip so she could reach out to support Dante’s arm. "You can't walk like this."
"I have to," Dante said fiercely, pushing off the wall. "If they catch us, they won't just kill me. They'll kill both of you to secure the bloodline."
The tunnel was terrifyingly dark, illuminated only by the faint flashlight app on Elina’s cheap smartphone. The ground was slick with mud, and the heavy rain outside had begun to leak through the ceiling, dripping freezing water onto their shoulders.
Every step Dante took was agonizing, but he refused to slow down. Elina walked closely beside him, holding Leo securely, drawing on a strength she didn't know she possessed.
After what felt like an eternity, the tunnel sloped upward, ending at a heavy iron grate covered in overgrown ivy.
Dante threw his shoulder against it. With a groan of rusted metal, the grate swung open, spilling them out into the torrential rain of the Chicago night.
They were miles from the estate, standing in the overgrown alleyway of a forgotten industrial district.
"My grandfather’s old bakery," Dante panted, gesturing toward a crumbling brick building across the alley. Its windows were boarded up, the sign faded into obscurity. "He bought it when he first came to this country. The syndicate doesn't know I kept the deed."
Dante kicked the rotting back door open, ushering Elina and the baby inside before collapsing heavily onto a dusty wooden flour-prep table in the center of the dark room.
The bakery smelled of stale flour, old wood, and decades of silence.
Elina quickly set the diaper bag down, making a makeshift bed for Leo out of Dante’s dry inner suit jacket. The baby, exhausted by the movement, miraculously stayed asleep, sucking contentedly on his thumb.
Elina turned to Dante. He was pale, sweating profusely, his hand still pressed against his bleeding side.
"Take your shirt off," Elina ordered, her waitress training kicking in. She was used to high-stress environments, though usually, it involved spilled soup, not gunshot wounds.
Dante offered a weak, grim smile. "Buying me dinner first usually works better."
"Don't joke," Elina snapped, her hands trembling as she helped him strip off the ruined shirt.
The bullet had grazed his side, carving a deep, ugly groove into his obliques, but it hadn't hit any vital organs. Elina tore the cleanest part of his shirt into strips, pressing them firmly against the wound to staunch the bleeding.
Dante winced, closing his eyes as she applied pressure.
"Why did Sofia want to destroy the syndicate?" Elina asked quietly, keeping her hands steady against his skin. "In the diary, she said she was going to dissolve it."
Dante opened his eyes, looking at her in the dim light filtering through the boarded-up windows.
"Because she realized that blood money only buys coffins," Dante whispered, his voice hoarse. "When we found out she was pregnant with Leo, everything changed. Sofia wanted to legitimize the businesses. She wanted to turn the underground casinos into real estate developments, the shipping lanes into legal import companies. She was the sole heir. She had the legal authority to do it."
"But the council wouldn't let her," Elina realized, the pieces finally falling into place.
"No," Dante agreed. "Camilla and Father Tomaso wanted the empire to remain in the shadows. They thrive on the violence. So they killed the queen to keep the throne."
Elina secured the makeshift bandage, tying it tightly around his waist. As she reached for Dante’s discarded heavy wool coat to cover him, something slipped out of a hidden tear in the silk lining.
It hit the wooden floor with a heavy, metallic clink.
Elina knelt and picked it up. It was a massive, antique iron key, intricate and heavy, completely out of place in a modern world.
Dante’s eyes snapped open when he heard the sound. He stared at the key in Elina’s hand, his breath catching in his throat.
"Where did you find that?" Dante asked urgently, struggling to sit up.
"It fell out of the lining of your coat," Elina said, handing it to him.
Dante stared at the key, a look of profound shock washing over his face. "This coat... it was a gift from Sofia on our first anniversary. I've worn it every winter since."
"What is it?" Elina asked.
"It’s the master key to the Moretti family’s underground vault beneath the old city bank," Dante breathed, looking up at Elina with a renewed fire in his eyes. "Sofia’s father locked his most dangerous secrets in there. Sofia died trying to find this key."
"If her father hid it, why would Sofia put it in your coat?"
"Because it was the one place Camilla would never dare to look," Dante realized, a fierce, proud smile touching his lips. "Even in death, my wife outsmarted them."
Dante swung his legs over the side of the table, ignoring the fresh spike of pain from his side. He grabbed his coat, slipping it over his bandaged torso.
"Elina, we can't stay here," Dante said, his voice hard with determination. "If Camilla takes over the council tomorrow at dawn, my son will be hunted for the rest of his life. The only way to stop her is to find what Sofia was trying to uncover in that vault."
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Elina looked at the sleeping baby, then at the dangerous, bleeding man who was fighting to protect him. She nodded, her fear entirely replaced by resolve.
"Then we go to the bank," Elina said.
