Chapter 5 - THE WRENCH AND THE REVOLVER
The freezing rain stung my face as I sprinted across the open tarmac behind Luca, keeping low against the howling wind.
Inside the cavernous hangar, the shouting was already echoing off the corrugated metal walls.
“Put the gun down, Dante!” old Salvatore’s voice rang out, shaking with age but fierce with loyalty. He gripped the heavy iron wrench with both hands at the top of the jet's boarding stairs. “You think Mr. Moretti is going to let you walk away with his daughter and his airline?”
Dante laughed, stepping further into the hangar with the heavy steel revolver leveled at the old man's chest.
“My cousin is a fool who spends too much time worrying about his aging mother and his housemaids,” Dante sneered, walking up the first two steps of the boarding ladder. “By morning, this plane will be over Canadian airspace, and the corporate proxy transfer will be fully processed. Luca won't have a company, a home, or an heir left to his name.”
Behind Dante, Vanessa pushed her way into the hangar, holding Sophie tightly by the arm.
Sophie stumbled, letting out a sharp cry of pain.
“Ow! You’re hurting me!” the little girl sobbed, trying to pull her arm away.
“Shut up, you little brat!” Vanessa hissed, her elegant facade completely shattered, her hair matted with rain and mascara running down her cheeks in black streaks. “If you hadn't cried so much in the car, we would have been airborne twenty minutes ago!”
“Leave her alone, you witch!” Sophie cried, trying to kick at Vanessa’s shins.
Vanessa raised her free hand, her fingers curling into a vicious slap aimed directly at the little girl's face.
My heart stopped.
I didn't think. I didn't calculate the risk.
From the shadows near the open hangar door, I grabbed a heavy plastic safety cone resting against a supply rack and hurled it directly across the concrete floor.
Clatter-bang!
The bright orange cone slammed violently into the side of Dante’s Lincoln Navigator outside, echoing like a gunshot through the cavernous space.
Dante spun around, leveling his revolver toward the doorway.
Vanessa froze, her hand hovering in mid-air above Sophie’s face.
“Who’s there?!” Dante bellowed, stepping backward off the boarding stairs.
From the darkness of the entrance, step by slow, deliberate step, Luca Moretti emerged into the harsh overhead glare of the emergency backup lights.
His dark coat was drenched with rain. His tattooed hands were empty, hanging loosely at his sides. But the look in his eyes was so terrifyingly cold that even Dante took an involuntary step back.
“Hello, cousin,” Luca said, his voice cutting through the space like a razor.
Dante’s face drained of color.
“L-Luca?” Dante stammered, lowering the gun by a fraction of an inch before frantically raising it again toward Luca's chest. “How—how did you find us? You were supposed to be at the lighthouse!”
“Did you really think a man who built an empire on tracking lies wouldn't recognize a fake map?” Luca asked quietly, closing the distance between them at a steady, unhurried pace.
Vanessa’s eyes darted wildly toward the open doors behind Luca, looking for an escape route that no longer existed. She yanked Sophie closer, pressing the edge of a small pocket knife—one she must have grabbed from the kitchen—directly against the little girl's soft collarbone.
“Don't take another step, Luca!” Vanessa shrieked, her voice cracking with hysteria. “I swear to God, I’ll cut her! I’ll slice her throat right here before you can blink!”
Luca stopped instantly.
Every muscle in his body went rigid. The terrifying, calm predator vanished in a single second, replaced by a father staring down the barrel of his worst nightmare.
“Vanessa,” Luca whispered, his voice shaking with a fury so intense it seemed to lower the temperature in the room. “Drop the knife. Right now.”
“Stay back!” Vanessa screamed, pressing the blade deeper until a tiny bead of crimson blood welled up against Sophie’s skin.
Sophie let out a piercing, terrified sob.
“Daddy! Help me!”
My blood ran cold. I crept silently along the edge of the shadow-drenched supply racks, moving toward Vanessa’s blind spot while all eyes were locked on Luca.
Dante grinned, recovering his composure as he saw Luca freeze.
“That’s right, cousin,” Dante taunted, raising his revolver again, pointing it directly at Luca's head. “Drop to your knees. Toss your weapon on the concrete. If you want your precious daughter back, you’re going to sign over your entire voting share in the syndicate right here, right now.”
Luca slowly raised his hands.
“Dante... put the gun down,” Luca said softly, his eyes never leaving Vanessa’s knife. “This is between you and me. Leave the child out of it.”
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“There is no child, there is no family, there is only power!” Dante snarled, tightening his finger around the trigger. “End of the line, Luca—”
Before Dante could finish the sentence, I lunged out from behind the supply rack, grabbing a heavy coiled fire hose from the wall bracket and swinging it with all my might directly behind Dante’s knees.
