Chapter 3 - The Iron Stairwell on Maynard Avenue
The sight of that dark shadow creeping along the iron rungs of my apartment building shattered whatever paralysis was left in my body.
“Emma!”
The scream tore from my throat with raw, animal fury.
I grabbed the interior door handle again, throwing my entire weight against it, completely ignoring the screaming agony in my torn ankle.
“Ava, sit back!” Luca commanded, his hand shooting out to seize my shoulder with crushing force.
He didn't pull me back roughly; he anchored me to the seat, shielding my body with his own bulk.
“That is my baby!” I cried, thrashing against his grip, tears blinding my vision.
“They are breaking into her room!”
“Dante,” Luca said into the vehicle's intercom, his voice dropping all trace of warmth and becoming absolute ice.
“Front and rear exits. Nobody leaves this alley on their feet.”
“Copy, Boss,” Dante answered instantly.
The Maybach didn't slow down for the curb.
Dante accelerated, slamming the front bumper of the armored Mercedes straight into the rear quarter-panel of the idling sedan parked by the entrance.
The deafening crunch of crumpling metal echoed through the narrow alleyway.
The impact spun the strange car sideways, blocking the alley completely.
Before the glass from the smashed taillights had even finished scattering across the wet pavement, Luca kicked his door open.
He didn't wait for his men.
He unbuttoned his charcoal coat with his left hand, and from beneath his armpit he drew a matte-black Sig Sauer pistol equipped with a cylindrical suppressor.
The weapon looked like an organic extension of his arm.
“Stay in the vehicle,” he ordered me without turning his head.
“No! You don't leave me here!”
I scrambled after him, tumbling out of the low seat into the freezing puddle on the asphalt.
The pain in my ankle flared white and sickening, driving me to my knees in the dirt.
Luca turned, caught me by the collar of my diner uniform before my face hit the concrete, and hauled me back against the tire of the Maybach.
“If you get shot, who protects Emma?” he hissed, his face inches from mine, eyes burning with a terrifying, protective ferocity.
The cold logic of his words hit me like a slap.
I pressed my back against the rubber tire, clutching my ribs, my lungs burning.
“Please,” I wept, clawing at his sleeve.
“Don't let them touch her.”
“They will die before they reach her door,” Luca whispered.
He turned toward the rusted iron stairs of the building's exterior fire escape.
Above us, the shadow had reached the third floor, prying at the rusted window frame of Mrs. Chen’s small kitchen.
From the smashed sedan in the alley, a man scrambled out through the passenger door, fumbling inside his jacket for a revolver.
He never raised the barrel.
Luca didn't shout a warning.
He didn't demand a surrender.
Two soft, rhythmic thwips hissed through the suppressor in his hand.
The man stumbled backward as if struck by an invisible hammer, his chest caving inward before he collapsed limp against the brick wall.
Dante was already moving past him, moving like a wraith through the shadows toward the rear stairwell with a shotgun drawn from the trunk.
Luca didn't look at the fallen man.
He sprinted toward the exterior fire escape stairs, leaping onto the rusted metal landing with the agility of a predator.
Rain poured down between the iron grating, slicking the rungs.
I couldn't stay by the car.
Every instinct of motherhood screamed louder than the pain in my shattered ligaments.
I dragged myself up along the chassis of the Maybach.
I hopped on my right foot, using the brick wall as a crutch, dragging my ruined left leg behind me like dead wood.
The concrete smelled of motor oil, stagnant rain, and the sharp copper tang of fresh blood.
Above me, the metal stairs clanged violently.
The intruder on the third floor had realized the ambush.
He dropped from the fire escape landing, landing hard on the rusted dumpster two stories down, intending to sprint toward the mouth of the alley.
He landed on the lid with a resounding boom of hollow tin.
Before he could find his balance, Luca intercepted him.
Luca met him mid-stride, grabbing the intruder’s collar with one hand and driving him violently down onto the concrete ground.
The sound of air exploding from the man’s lungs was audible even over the rain.
The intruder reached for a blade strapped to his thigh, but Luca’s boot came down instantly on the man’s wrist.
A sickening crack echoed in the narrow space.
The man screamed, a high, pathetic wail that was cut short when Luca pressed the suppressed barrel of the Sig Sauer directly against his temple.
“Speak quietly,” Luca murmured, his voice so calm it was monstrous.
“My goddaughter is sleeping three floors up.”
I froze against the brick wall, my hand clutching the iron railing of the stairs.
Goddaughter?
The word echoed in my mind, drowning out the roar of the November storm.
The intruder spat blood onto the wet pavement, his eyes rolling back in terror beneath the rim of his soaked hood.
“Castellano... Moretti already has the dock manifests,” the man wheezed, his fingers clawing at the muddy asphalt.
“You're too late... Jake already sold the route codes...”
“Jake sold you a photocopy of garbage,” Luca whispered coldly.
“Who sent you to this window tonight?”
“Moretti... he said the girl had the original seal... on her birth registration...”
Luca didn't ask another question.
His thumb pulled the hammer back with a distinct metallic click.
“Where is Jake Martinez?”
“At the pier... Pier 54... waiting for the cash drop...”
Luca stared down at the man for three long, agonizing seconds.
Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, he brought the heavy steel butt of the pistol down against the side of the man’s skull.
The intruder’s head bounced off the pavement, and he went completely limp, unconscious in the rain.
Luca holstered the weapon beneath his coat in a single, practiced motion.
He turned toward me.
I stood there shivering, soaked to the bone, my hands smeared with soot from the brick wall, staring at him in wild horror.
“You called her your goddaughter,” I whispered, rain streaming down my neck.
“You called Emma your goddaughter.”
Luca walked toward me, his boots splashing through the crimson-tinted puddles without hesitation.
He didn't answer.
He reached down, scooped me into his arms for the second time that night, and turned toward the building’s front entrance.
“We are going upstairs,” he said, his chest rising and falling in deep, measured breaths.
May you like
“You need to hold your daughter, Ava.”
“And then you are going to tell me what my father did.”
