Chapter 9 - The Road to the Falcone Estate
By midday, the persistent rain had slowed to a gloomy, freezing mist that hung over the pine-covered hills outside the city.
In the center of the warehouse, Mateo and Vincent were loading tactical gear into the trunk of a matte-black armored sedan.
Dr. Chen stood near the cot, administering a long-acting bronchodilator injection to Maya.
“She’s stable enough to remain here under my care,” Dr. Chen told Claraara.
“The climate control will keep her bronchial tubes open. She won’t cough while you’re gone.”
Claraara knelt on her good knee, hugging her daughter tightly.
“Mommy has to run an important errand with Mr. Rossy, okay?”
Maya wrapped her thin arms around Claraara’s neck.
“Will you bring Daddy back?”
The question felt like a serrated blade tearing through Claraara’s chest.
She looked into her daughter’s trusting hazel eyes and took a deep, steady breath.
“Daddy made some bad choices, sweetheart. But Mommy is going to make sure nobody ever scares us again. Do you trust me?”
Maya nodded slowly, pressing her cheek against Claraara’s shoulder.
“I trust you, Mommy.”
Claraara stood up, gripping her aluminum crutch, and walked to the waiting vehicle.
Gabriel had provided her with clean, warm clothes—a heavy cashmere sweater, thick wool trousers, and a dark insulated parka.
For the first time in three years, she wasn’t shivering from the cold.
She slid into the leather passenger seat of the armored sedan.
Gabriel sat behind the wheel, his dark overcoat thrown over the back of the seat, revealing his holstered weapon.
Vincent and Mateo followed in a second vehicle trailing two hundred yards behind.
As the sedan cleared the automated security gates of Pier 4, Claraara watched the gray harbor disappear in the rearview mirror.
“How do you plan to get inside Falcone’s gates?” she asked, looking at the grim profile of his face.
“Falcone has fifty armed guards on that mountain. You have three men.”
Gabriel kept his eyes fixed on the winding mountain highway ahead.
“Falcone thinks Luca Moretti succeeded in capturing you at the pier.”
Claraara turned to look at him, her eyes wide.
“What?”
“Moretti didn’t die in that courtyard,” Gabriel revealed calmly.
“He broke after five minutes in the dry dock. He placed a radio call to Don Falcone an hour ago, confirming that he had secured you and was transporting you to the main estate via a secondary route.”
“You’re using his captured men as our escort?”
“I’m using his fear of failure as our Trojan horse,” Gabriel replied.
The sedan began climbing the steep, winding roads through the dense pine forests of Black Ridge.
Gated estates hidden behind ten-foot stone walls and wrought-iron fences lined the ridges.
This was where the city’s true royalty lived—the politicians, judges, and syndicate bosses who profited from the blood in the gutters below.
Claraara stared out at the towering iron gates of the Falcone compound looming through the trees.
Security cameras swept the perimeter from concrete guard towers.
Men in dark suits holding automatic rifles patrolled the gravel driveways behind high-tensile fences.
Gabriel slowed the car as they approached the fortified iron entry gate.
The guard inside the stone gatehouse stepped out, raising a hand to halt the vehicle.
From the second car trailing behind them, Luca Moretti leaned out of the passenger window, his face bruised and swollen beneath a pulled-down woolen cap.
“Open the damn gate, Carl!” Moretti yelled through the cold air.
“We’ve got the asset from the docks! The Don is waiting in the conservatory!”
The guard hesitated, scanning the dark tinted windows of Gabriel’s sedan.
Then he nodded, punching a code into the wall console.
The massive iron gates ground open, swinging inward into the lion’s den.
Gabriel pressed the accelerator, gliding smoothly down the long, tree-lined avenue toward the limestone mansion.
Claraara’s heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, her hands gripping the door handle.
Gabriel did not take his hands off the steering wheel.
May you like
“Keep your head down and stay behind me when the doors open,” he said, his voice as calm as deep water under ice.
“Today, Claraara, you stop running.”
