Chapter 8 - THE FIRE
Vanessa stared at her brother, her eyes wide with shock and betrayal.
“Marco?” Vanessa gasped, the silver pistol wavering away from my father’s head for just a second. “What are you doing? Put the gun down!”
Marco didn’t lower his weapon. He walked slowly into the dim light of the warehouse, his trench coat sweeping over the dusty concrete floor.
“I’m doing what our father should have done twenty years ago,” Marco said coldly. “I’m taking the money for myself.”
“We’re a team!” Vanessa screamed, her voice cracking. “I faked your death! I kept you hidden for seven years! I infiltrated the Moretti house for us!”
Marco laughed, a dry, humorless sound.
“You infiltrated the house because you wanted to play queen,” Marco sneered. “You liked wearing the expensive dresses and sleeping in Luca’s bed. You lost sight of the mission, Vanessa. You became weak.”
“I am not weak!” Vanessa shrieked, aiming her gun at Marco.
“Emma, get down!” Luca’s voice barked in my earpiece.
I didn’t hesitate. I threw myself onto the cold concrete floor, covering my head with my arms.
A gunshot rang out, deafening in the enclosed metal space.
It wasn’t Vanessa who fired. It wasn’t Marco.
It was a sniper shot from the catwalk above.
The bullet shattered the silver pistol right out of Vanessa’s hand. She screamed in pain, clutching her bleeding fingers as she stumbled backward away from my father’s wheelchair.
Before Marco could react, the heavy metal doors of the warehouse slammed shut behind him.
Luca stepped out from behind a stack of shipping crates, a heavy automatic weapon raised to his shoulder.
“It’s over, Marco,” Luca ordered, his voice booming with absolute authority. “Drop the gun.”
Marco looked at the catwalks, seeing the laser sights of Marcus’s tactical team painting red dots across his chest. He looked at Luca. Then, he looked at his bleeding sister on the floor.
Marco smiled.
It was a sick, twisted smile of total defeat.
“If I don’t get the Caruso trust,” Marco whispered, reaching into his coat pocket with his free hand, “nobody does.”
He pulled out a silver flare lighter, clicked it open, and dropped it onto the floor.
He had doused the perimeter of the warehouse in gasoline before I even arrived.
The flames erupted instantly.
A wall of fire shot up ten feet into the air, instantly separating me and my father from Luca and the exit. The heat was blinding, sucking the oxygen out of the room in seconds.
“Emma!” Luca roared over the sound of the roaring flames.
Marco laughed maniacally as the fire began to catch on the wooden shipping crates around him.
But Marcus’s team didn’t hesitate. Two quick, suppressed shots rang out from the catwalk. Marco dropped to the floor, incapacitated, the gun sliding from his hand.
I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the searing heat.
I ran to my father’s wheelchair. He was coughing violently, the thick black smoke already filling the upper half of the warehouse.
“Dad! I’m here, I’ve got you!” I cried, pulling frantically at the thick plastic zip-ties binding his wrists.
They wouldn’t budge. They were heavy-duty construction ties.
“Emma…” my father choked out, his good hand weakly grabbing my sleeve. “Leave me… run…”
“No!” I screamed, coughing as the smoke burned my lungs. “I’m not leaving you!”
I looked around desperately.
Vanessa was on her knees nearby, clutching her wounded hand, screaming as the flames closed in around her.
“Help me!” Vanessa shrieked, looking at me.
Suddenly, a heavy metal fire extinguisher crashed through the flames.
Luca burst through the wall of fire, his expensive black suit smoking, his jacket wrapped around his face to block the smoke.
He didn’t run toward Vanessa. He ran straight to us.
He pulled a heavy tactical knife from his belt and sliced through the zip-ties on my father’s wrists with one swift, practiced motion.
“Grab the other side of the chair!” Luca yelled over the roar of the fire.
I grabbed the left handle, Luca grabbed the right. Together, we hoisted the heavy wheelchair, lifting my father completely off the ground.
We ran blindly toward the loading dock doors, the heat blistering the back of my neck.
“What about Vanessa?!” I yelled, looking back.
Luca didn’t stop moving.
“Marcus has her!” Luca shouted back.
We burst through the heavy wooden loading doors, tumbling out into the freezing, foggy night air of the pier.
I collapsed onto the wet wooden planks, gasping for breath, my lungs burning with every inhale. My father lay beside me, coughing weakly, but he was alive. He was safe.
Seconds later, Marcus and two tactical officers emerged from the smoke, dragging a sobbing, coughing Vanessa by her arms. They dumped her roughly onto the pier, immediately clicking heavy steel handcuffs around her wrists.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Fire trucks and police cruisers were already turning onto the pier, their red and blue lights cutting through the thick fog.
Luca dropped to his knees beside me. His face was covered in soot, his expensive clothes ruined.
He looked at my father.
William Reed looked up at the mafia boss, his eyes wide with fear and confusion.
Luca didn’t threaten him. He didn’t demand answers.
He reached out and gently rested his hand on my father’s shoulder.
“You kept her safe for twenty-five years, William,” Luca said quietly, his voice thick with emotion. “My father owed you a debt he could never repay. And so do I.”
My father closed his eyes, tears leaking from the corners.
Luca turned to me.
May you like
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the heavy bronze key.
“It’s over, Emma,” Luca whispered, placing the key gently into my soot-stained hands. “The money is yours. The legacy is yours.”
