Chapter 8 - The Ambush at the Machine Shop
Kora’s heart stopped beating for an entire agonizing second.
Her blood turned instantly to ice.
“Eli,” she whispered, grabbing Damon’s wet leather sleeve with both hands.
Her fingernails bit through the fabric into his skin.
“Damon... he doesn't know anything.”
“He’s just a student.”
“He’s nineteen years old.”
Damon caught her hands in his own, holding them with an iron grip that forced her eyes up to meet his.
“Look at me, Kora,” Damon ordered softly.
“Look at my eyes.”
Kora stared into his hazel gaze.
The lethal, indifferent coldness that made the underground syndicate tremble was gone.
In its place was a savage, unshakable vow.
“Your brother is my family now,” Damon said, each word carved from granite.
“Nobody touches Eli Whitlock while I still draw breath in this city.”
Damon clicked the satellite phone back to his lips.
“Marcus, mobilize the armored convoy from the Commerce terminal immediately.”
“Cut power to the eastern quadrant of the campus.”
“We will be at the engineering quad in four minutes.”
Damon pulled Kora up from the concrete ledge.
They climbed a rusted iron ladder that led to a storm drain maintenance cover beneath a private alleyway behind the San Antonio Market Square.
Waiting in the shadows was an unmarked matte-black SUV, idling quietly with its running lights extinguished.
Damon shoved Garrett into the rear floorboards between two heavily armed guards.
“If he moves a muscle, break his knees,” Damon commanded without looking back.
He helped Kora into the passenger seat and threw a heavy dry wool jacket over her trembling shoulders.
Damon climbed behind the wheel, slammed the accelerator, and the heavy engine roared like a caged animal.
The SUV shot through the wet downtown streets, blowing through red lights with terrifying precision.
Two miles north, the engineering complex of the university sat in complete darkness.
The municipal power grid to the southern sector of the campus had been killed by Marcus’s cyber team.
The only illumination came from the headlights of two black Suburbans parked across the lawn of the mechanical laboratory.
Inside the ground-floor machining lab, nineteen-year-old Eli Whitlock was hiding under a heavy steel milling table.
His hands were shaking so hard he could barely hold his phone.
Glass shards from the front windows littered the polished epoxy floor.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the hallway outside the double doors.
“Eli!” a harsh voice called out from the dark corridor.
“We know you're in the machining hall, kid!”
“Your sister made a very expensive mistake tonight!”
“Come out with your hands up, and maybe Anton Kesler will let you finish your degree!”
Eli pressed his hand over his mouth to choke back a terrified sob.
He had Walter’s blood in his veins, but he was an engineer, not a street brawler.
He looked up at the workbench above him.
Resting on the metal ledge was a heavy steel torque wrench and a jar of industrial degreaser.
His father’s voice whispered through the dark corners of his memory: Pay attention to the slowly.
The doors to the machining lab kicked open with a loud metallic crash.
Two mercenaries wearing Kevlar vests and carrying shotguns entered the room, sweeping their tactical flashlights across the rows of lathes and drill presses.
“Check the back lockers,” the lead thug ordered.
The second man walked slowly past the milling table, his flashlight beam slicing across the metal legs.
Before the light could hit Eli’s face, a sudden engine roar tore through the glass wall behind them.
Damon’s black SUV smashed through the reinforced double-glass entrance of the engineering building.
Tires shrieked against the epoxy floor, scattering steel carts and wooden workbenches in an explosion of sparks and debris.
The two hitmen spun around, raising their shotguns.
Damon didn't wait for the vehicle to stop completely.
He kicked open the driver’s door while the SUV was still sliding, firing three rapid suppressed rounds through the driver’s side windshield.
The lead hitman was knocked off his feet, his shotgun clattering harmlessly to the floor.
The second mercenary raised his weapon toward Damon’s exposed flank.
From beneath the milling table, Eli Whitlock lunged forward.
With a terrified, furious roar, Eli drove the heavy steel torque wrench straight into the back of the shooter’s knee.
Bone cracked.
The shooter shrieked in agony and collapsed sideways onto the floor.
Damon stepped over the hood of the vehicle, kicked the shotgun away from the fallen man’s grip, and drove the heel of his boot into the mercenary’s jaw, knocking him out cold.
Silence fell over the destroyed machining lab.
The air was thick with the smell of scorched rubber, engine coolant, and shattered glass.
Kora threw open the passenger door of the SUV and scrambled out into the debris.
“Eli!” she screamed, her voice breaking.
“Kora!”
Eli crawled out from beneath the steel table, covered in metal shavings and oil.
Kora fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around her little brother, pulling his head against her chest with ferocious force.
She was crying now, tears cutting tracks through the soot on her cheeks.
“Are you hurt?” she gasped, checking his arms, his ribs, his neck.
“Did they touch you?”
“I’m okay... Kora, I’m okay,” Eli breathed, shaking violently as he held his sister.
“I heard them... they said you were dead...”
“I am alive,” Kora whispered fiercely.
“I am right here.”
Eli looked up past his sister’s shoulder.
Damon Vascari stood five feet away, towering in the ruined laboratory like a dark, silent guardian.
His gun was lowered, and his eyes rested on the two siblings with an emotion he had spent a decade trying to bury.
Eli looked at the blood on Damon’s face and then at the leather bracelet woven with brass wire on Damon’s wrist.
Eli recognized that bracelet.
His sister had spent three nights at the kitchen table weaving that exact piece of leather.
“Who is he?” Eli whispered to Kora.
Kora wiped her tears and stood up, keeping one hand firmly on Eli’s shoulder.
May you like
She looked at Damon.
“He’s the man who kept his word,” Kora said softly.
