Chapter 6 - THE CLOCK TOWER
"How much time?" Lorenzo demanded, his voice echoing in the concrete garage. The calm mafia boss was gone, replaced by a man staring down the imminent murder of his mother and sisters.
Rocco checked the tablet. "Thirty minutes, Boss. The signal is routing through a localized detonator. Our tech guys say we can't hack it remotely. We need the physical defuse code, or we need to evacuate the cellar."
"We can't evacuate," Lorenzo said, pacing furiously. "Marcus welded the heavy steel blast doors shut from the outside before we took the secret tunnel. By the time my men cut through two inches of reinforced steel, the bomb will go off."
I looked down at the bloody ledger page in my hand.
"Leo," I knelt down to my brother’s eye level. "Sweetie, you said you saw Dad at a warehouse. Where was it? Do you remember anything about it?"
Leo wiped his nose, trying to be brave. "It was really loud. Like big gears grinding. And there was a huge clock face on the wall. A giant glass clock."
"The old train station clock tower," Rocco realized immediately. "It’s abandoned. Richard Vane bought the property two years ago to redevelop it."
"Vane is there," Lorenzo concluded, his eyes dark. "He has the defuse code. Celeste must have gotten it from him."
"Or," I said, a terrifying thought occurring to me, "Celeste is going to kill her father to take total control, and he’s the only one left who knows how to stop this."
Lorenzo looked at me, the respect in his eyes deepening. He turned to Rocco.
"Rocco. Take Leo to the safehouse. Put every available gun you have on him. If anyone so much as looks at this boy, I want them buried."
"You got it, Boss," Rocco said, gently putting a massive hand on Leo’s shoulder. "Come on, kid. I've got a fortified bunker with unlimited video games waiting for you."
I kissed Leo’s forehead, hugging him fiercely. "I'll be right behind you, Leo. I promise. Be brave."
As Rocco led Leo to one of the armored trucks, Lorenzo turned to the second vehicle, a matte-black sports sedan.
"Evelyn, you need to go with Rocco," Lorenzo said, opening the driver's door. "This is going to get bloody."
"No," I said, stepping right up to him, refusing to back down. "My father is in that clock tower. I spent eight years thinking he abandoned me. I am not leaving him alone with a psychopath. I'm coming with you."
Lorenzo studied my face for a long second. He saw the absolute resolve in my eyes, the same stubbornness that had kept my family afloat for years.
He didn't argue. He nodded once. "Get in."
We sped through the empty Chicago streets, the V8 engine roaring as Lorenzo pushed the car to its absolute limits. The city blurred past us, neon lights bleeding into the dark night.
"I'm sorry," Lorenzo said quietly, his eyes fixed on the road.
I looked at him, surprised. "For what?"
"For bringing this into your life," he said, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. "You were just a waitress trying to pay rent. I bought The Obsidian a year ago to legitimize our assets. I never intended for you to be caught in the crossfire of my uncle’s betrayal."
"I was already in the crossfire," I reminded him softly. "My father worked for Vane. This was always going to catch up to me. You just happened to be the one standing next to me when it did."
He glanced at me, the harsh lines of his face softening just a fraction. No mafia boss had ever looked at me with such genuine reverence. In that brief moment inside a speeding car, the terrifying world outside faded, leaving just the raw, unspoken connection between us.
"We're here," Lorenzo announced, snapping us back to reality as he killed the headlights.
We pulled into the overgrown lot of the abandoned clock tower. The massive brick structure loomed against the night sky, the giant glass face of the clock glowing faintly from the moonlight.
Lorenzo pulled a tactical pistol from the console and handed me a smaller, heavy handgun.
"Keep the safety off. Point and pull," he instructed, his voice all business now.
We slipped out of the car and approached the rusted iron doors of the tower. They were slightly ajar.
We moved silently up the winding, dusty spiral staircase. The air smelled of oil, rust, and old blood. Above us, the deafening, rhythmic CLACK-CLACK-CLACK of the massive clock gears echoed through the hollow tower.
We reached the top floor, a sprawling open room situated directly behind the giant, translucent glass face of the clock.
Tied to a heavy metal chair in the center of the room, directly beneath the massive, grinding gears, was my father.
He was battered, his face bruised and bleeding, his gray hair matted with sweat.
"Dad!" I screamed, dropping my gun and rushing forward.
My father’s head snapped up. His eyes widened in absolute terror when he saw me.
"Evy? No! Evy, you have to get out of here!" he croaked, straining against the thick steel cables binding him to the chair.
I dropped to my knees beside him, my hands frantically pulling at the unforgiving steel cables. "Dad, I'm here. We're going to get you out."
"You shouldn't have come," he wept, tears cutting paths through the dirt on his face. "I gave myself to them so they would leave you alone. I stole that ledger to leverage your safety!"
"It's over, Mr. Carter," Lorenzo said, stepping up beside me, keeping his pistol raised, sweeping the dark corners of the room. "We have the vault key. We have Leo. You're coming home."
Suddenly, the heavy iron door at the top of the stairwell slammed shut with a deafening clang, locking us inside.
A figure stepped out from the shadows near the clock face.
It was Richard Vane.
But he wasn't the impeccably dressed, arrogant billionaire who had sat at my table. He was stumbling, clutching his stomach, his white dress shirt soaked in dark, spreading blood.
He collapsed against a wooden support beam, gasping for air.
"Vane," Lorenzo said, keeping his gun aimed. "Give me the defuse code for the restaurant."
Richard Vane let out a wet, rattling laugh, coughing up blood. "I don't have it, Lorenzo. She changed it. She took everything."
"Who?" I demanded, though I already knew the answer.
"My daughter," Vane wheezed, sliding down the beam to the dusty floor. "Celeste. She wasn't acting on my orders tonight. She used my money to buy your uncle, Lorenzo. She set the trap for you, and when I tried to stop her... she shot me."
Celeste wasn't the dutiful daughter following a mafia kingpin. She was a psychopath who had just usurped her father’s empire in a bloody, ruthless coup.
Suddenly, a massive spotlight flared on from the catwalk above us, blinding us.
"Tick tock, Lorenzo," Celeste’s voice echoed through the tower, amplified by a megaphone.
She stood on the metal grating above, looking down at us like an executioner.
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"Twenty minutes left until your family burns," Celeste smiled. She reached over and pulled a heavy, rusted lever on the wall.
With a horrifying screech of metal, the massive clock gears above my father suddenly shifted gears, grinding faster, pulling the steel cables tied to his chair directly toward the crushing, rotating teeth of the mechanism.
