Chapter 7 - The Asphalt Gauntlet
The service tunnels beneath Blackwood Manor were damp, smelling of ancient mortar and forgotten wine casks.
Lucas carried a heavy tactical flashlight, illuminating the stone archways built by his great-grandfather.
Matteo walked ahead of them, a shotgun resting across his forearm, his loyalty finally chosen.
The veteran enforcer had spent thirty years serving the DeLuca name, not the mad ambition of one man.
“Arthur blocked the main gate with two garbage haulers,” Matteo said, pausing near the subterranean exit.
“He thinks we’ll try to punch through the driveway with the heavy Yukon.”
“What about the old carriage road through the southern woods?” Lucas asked.
“Overgrown, muddy, but passable if we use the four-wheel drive Mercedes in the secondary bay.”
Samuel walked between them without stumbling, his cane tapping lightly against the tunnel stones.
He knew every brick in this foundation; he had laid several of them with his own hands as a young man.
“Arthur expects us to run toward the state line,” Samuel murmured, his breathing calm and rhythmic.
“He thinks fear will drive Rachel back to the hills where David hid her.”
“He does not believe a parlor maid has the courage to march straight into the center of his power.”
Rachel walked close behind the patriarch, wearing a dark wool coat Lucas had taken from the hall closet.
Beneath the coat, her maid’s uniform was stained with dust and engine grease from the tunnel door.
She did not feel like a maid anymore.
She felt like a ghost returning to reclaim a tomb that had been stolen from her ancestors.
They emerged into the secondary carriage house tucked away behind a dense grove of weeping willows.
The black Mercedes sedan sat waiting in the shadows, its engine cold and quiet.
Matteo popped the hood, checking the ignition wires for tracking transponders or remote explosives.
“Clean,” Matteo grunted after thirty tense seconds.
“Arthur’s men didn't check this barn.”
“Get in,” Lucas instructed Rachel, opening the heavy reinforced rear door for her and Samuel.
Lucas slid behind the steering wheel while Matteo took the front passenger seat, cycling a shell into the chamber.
The powerful V8 engine roared to life with a deep, muffled growl that barely broke the sound of the rain.
Lucas clicked the headlights off, navigating by the faint grey dawn filtering through the canopy of trees.
The tires churned through wet mud and rotting leaves as the heavy vehicle surged forward.
They breached the perimeter fence through an old rusted chain-link gate that gave way with a screech.
Within three minutes, the sedan hit the slick asphalt of the state highway leading into the city center.
The storm had begun to clear, revealing a bleak, slate-gray sky hovering over the urban skyline.
Lucas accelerated to eighty miles per hour, his eyes darting between the mirrors and the road ahead.
“Two miles to the river bridge,” Lucas said, his knuckles tightening on the leather-wrapped wheel.
Suddenly, a pair of high-beam halogen lights flared in the rearview mirror, blindingly bright.
A heavy black pickup truck with an iron brush guard slammed into the rear bumper of the Mercedes.
The violent impact threw Rachel forward against the leather backrest of Lucas’s seat.
“Hold on!” Lucas yelled, wrestling the steering wheel to prevent the sedan from spinning out.
A second truck materialized from an access ramp on the right, attempting to box them against the guardrail.
Matteo rolled down the passenger window, the freezing wind ripping through the cabin.
He leaned out into the gale and fired three deafening blasts from his shotgun into the lead truck's radiator.
Steam and fluid exploded from the pickup’s grille, its windshield shattering into a spiderweb of cracks.
The truck veered wildly across the median, flipping three times before crashing into a concrete pillar.
“There’s one more behind us!” Rachel cried out, looking through the rear window.
The second vehicle closed the distance, its passenger leaning out with an automatic assault rifle.
Rounds peppered the rear glass of the Mercedes, leaving spiderweb fractures across the bulletproof laminate.
Lucas slammed on the brakes without warning, engaging the heavy transmission in a calculated maneuver.
The pursuing truck shot past their rear quarter panel, unable to stop its forward momentum on the wet road.
Lucas whipped the wheel to the left, ramming the reinforced front bumper into the pickup’s rear axle.
The pickup fishtailed violently across the three-lane bridge, crashing into the steel suspension cables.
Lucas pressed the gas pedal flat to the floor, leaving the burning wreckage behind in the grey morning mist.
Rachel looked down at her hands; they were steady now, the adrenaline burning out the last of her fear.
Beside her, Samuel was smiling faintly, his sightless eyes facing the skyline ahead.
“David drove just like that when the Chicago crew chased us across the border in seventy-nine,” the old man said.
Lucas glanced into the mirror, catching Rachel’s eye for a brief, electric moment.
“We’re entering the financial district,” Lucas said, easing off the throttle.
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“The street captains are already assembling at the bank.”
“Arthur cannot shoot his way into Merchant National without declaring war on every family in the state.”
