Chapter 8 - THE DETONATOR
"Fourteen minutes, Lorenzo," Celeste’s voice echoed from the catwalk, sickly sweet and dripping with madness. "Fourteen minutes until the gas in that cellar ignites, and your precious family is incinerated."
Lorenzo stepped in front of me and my father, his broad shoulders shielding us.
"Celeste," Lorenzo said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "You have what you want. Your father is bleeding out on the floor. Uncle Carmine's loyalists will follow whoever pays them. You won the city. Give me the defuse code for the restaurant, and you can walk away."
Celeste threw her head back and laughed, a high, piercing sound that sent chills down my spine.
"Walk away?" she sneered, gripping the railing of the catwalk. "You embarrassed me tonight, Lorenzo. You chose a waitress over a queen. I don't just want the city. I want to watch you break. I want you to beg me for their lives, and then I want to press this button anyway."
She was completely unhinged, drunk on her newly stolen power.
But as she gloated, holding the black detonator high in the air, I saw a subtle movement in the shadows behind the giant, translucent glass face of the clock.
Reflected in the glass was the heavy metal door of the roof access stairwell slowly creaking open.
A massive, familiar silhouette slipped silently onto the catwalk behind Celeste.
It was Rocco.
He hadn't stayed at the safehouse. He had left Leo under heavily armed guard and followed his boss into the fire.
Lorenzo saw the reflection too. We didn't exchange a word, but our eyes met for a fraction of a second. We needed to keep her distracted.
"You want him to beg, Celeste?" I shouted, stepping out from behind Lorenzo's protective stance.
Celeste’s eyes snapped to me, her lip curling in disgust. "Shut your mouth, trash."
"No, you listen to me," I yelled, channeling every ounce of fear and anger I had into my voice, projecting it up toward the catwalk. "You have millions of dollars. You have an empire built on blood. You wear silk gowns and diamonds. But you are pathetic."
Celeste stiffened, her knuckles turning white around the detonator.
"You had to fake a photography session, drug innocent women, and shoot your own father in the stomach just to get Lorenzo’s attention!" I taunted, walking forward, making sure all her focus was locked on me. "And even with a bomb strapped to his family, he would rather die on this filthy floor with a waitress than spend one more second pretending to love you!"
"I will blow them to pieces right now!" Celeste screamed, raising her thumb over the glowing red button.
"Now, Rocco!" Lorenzo roared.
Rocco lunged from the shadows. He tackled Celeste with the force of a freight train, slamming her into the metal grating of the catwalk.
The detonator flew from her hand, clattering against the railing and plummeting down toward us.
Lorenzo dove, catching the small black device in mid-air before it could hit the concrete floor and trigger.
Above us, Celeste shrieked in absolute fury. She managed to wrench her arm free from Rocco's grip, pulling a small, pearl-handled Derringer from an ankle holster.
She fired blindly.
Rocco grunted as the bullet tore through his bicep, but the massive captain didn't let go. With his good arm, he delivered a crushing blow to Celeste’s temple, knocking her out cold against the metal grating.
"I'm good, Boss!" Rocco yelled down, gripping his bleeding arm. "I've got her!"
Lorenzo didn't celebrate. He stared down at the black detonator in his hand. The digital display read 12:04.
"It's just a remote trigger," Lorenzo said, panic finally creeping into his voice. "There's no keypad. I can't abort the countdown from here. The main bomb is at the restaurant."
I grabbed Lorenzo’s arm. "Call your men at the restaurant! They have bomb techs, right?"
Lorenzo nodded, ripping a radio from his belt. "Alpha Team, this is actual. Do you have eyes on the device in the cellar ventilation shaft?"
The radio crackled with static, then a frantic voice replied. "We have it, Boss. We cut through the access panel. It's a localized C4 block wired to a digital keypad lock. But if we try to cut the wires without the six-digit abort code, the anti-tamper switch will detonate it."
"We need the code," Lorenzo said, looking desperately at the unconscious Celeste on the catwalk. "Wake her up! Break her fingers if you have to, get that code!"
"Wait," my father gasped, stumbling forward, leaning heavily on my shoulder. He looked at Lorenzo. "Eight years ago, when I hid the master ledger... I encrypted the digital lock with a localized key code. Vane must have used the same encryption software to rig this bomb."
"Dad, what was the code?" I asked, my heart pounding.
"I didn't use a random number," my dad wheezed, clutching his bruised ribs. "I used a serial number. Six digits. So I would never forget it."
"What serial number, Daniel?" Lorenzo demanded, the timer ticking down to ten minutes.
"The serial number scratched into the inside casing of my brass pocket watch," my dad said.
The blood drained entirely from my face.
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The brass pocket watch. The one Lorenzo had pulled from the bloodstained coat in the Prohibition tunnels.
"Lorenzo," I whispered, sheer, unadulterated terror gripping my throat. "When Celeste ambushed us in the parking garage... I dropped the watch."
