Chapter 10 - Defending the Crown
Luca reached the hotel in less than seven minutes, driving an old utility truck borrowed from the union parking lot.
Thick black smoke was already billowing from the basement ventilation grates along the sidewalk.
The grand glass doors of the front entrance were completely locked and deadbolted from the inside.
Luca didn't waste time trying the locks.
He drove the front bumper of the heavy truck directly into the bronze-framed service doors beside the delivery dock.
With a violent crunch of metal and shattering safety glass, the barrier gave way.
Luca leaped out of the truck, wrapping his wet woolen scarf around his mouth and nose.
The basement corridor was thick with suffocating gray smoke.
""Sophia! Maya!"" Luca shouted, his voice swallowed by the roaring draft of heat pulling through the elevator shafts.
He grabbed an emergency dry-chemical fire extinguisher from the wall mount and sprinted toward the subterranean stairs.
As he kicked open the heavy fire door leading to the central mechanical room, he was greeted by a blast of scorching heat.
A wall of fire was already crawling up the main electrical junction box.
Standing near the natural gas line was Frank Moretti Jr., holding an open torch toward the secondary pressure release valve.
If that valve opened, the gas would ignite the entire lower floor in a massive fireball that would collapse the hotel’s foundation.
""Frank!"" Luca roared, charging through the thick smoke.
Frank spun around, his eyes wide with manic fury behind his respirator mask.
""You're too late, Valente!"" Frank screamed, swinging a heavy iron pipe directly at Luca’s head.
Luca ducked instinctively, but the heavy metal grazed his left shoulder, sending a shock of blinding agony through his collarbone.
Luca slammed the heavy base of the fire extinguisher into Frank’s ribs, knocking the gangster backward into the concrete wall.
The cutting torch slipped from Frank's fingers, clattering across the floor toward the pool of spilled accelerant.
Luca dove onto the concrete, his blistered hands grabbing the burning metal torch just inches before the flame touched the liquid.
He twisted the valve shut, killing the flame in a hiss of black soot.
Before he could rise, Frank’s two armed enforcers lunged from behind the burning generators.
One of them struck Luca across the face with a heavy flashlight, opening a deep gash above his eye.
Blood poured into Luca’s vision, warm and blinding.
The second man pinned Luca against the hot metal casing of the boiler, wrapping a thick wire around his throat.
Luca clawed desperately at the wire, his lungs screaming for air in the smoke-choked room.
""You should have let us take the building, little boy,"" the enforcer hissed in his ear.
Suddenly, the heavy metal door of the mechanical room slammed wide open.
A jet of high-pressure white foam struck the enforcer square in the face, knocking him off his feet with tremendous force.
Daniel Cho stood in the doorway, wielding an industrial fire hose connected directly to the street hydrant.
Behind him came six hotel maintenance engineers armed with pipe wrenches, crowbars, and heavy steel mallets.
""Get away from him!"" Daniel shouted, directing the water cannon directly into the burning electrical panels.
The maintenance team swarmed the room with absolute discipline.
They knew every shut-off valve, every circuit breaker, and every secondary drainage trench in that basement because they had built them.
Within seconds, one engineer killed the primary gas supply at the street junction.
Two others tackled Frank’s enforcers to the floor, disarming them and pinning them beneath heavy steel wrenches.
Frank Moretti scrambled to his feet, trying to crawl toward the drainage tunnel escape hatch.
Luca wiped the blood from his eyes, surged forward with the last ounce of his strength, and tackled Frank into the concrete floor.
He rolled the syndicate boss onto his back, planting his heavy boot squarely on Frank’s chest.
Luca raised his fist, his knuckles ready to pulverize the face of the man who had tried to murder his family.
For three agonizing seconds, the old Luca Valente stood on the edge of the abyss, ready to kill with his bare hands.
Then he looked up and saw Daniel Cho and the kitchen staff watching him through the clearing smoke.
They weren't looking at him with fear.
They were looking at him to see who he truly was.
Luca slowly relaxed his fingers.
He lowered his fist.
""You aren't worth the blood on my hands, Frank,"" Luca said quietly, his voice steady amid the hissing steam.
At that moment, the high-pitched sirens of dozens of emergency vehicles echoed from the street above.
Maya Ellis and Sophia appeared at the top of the basement stairs, guided down safely by the hotel security staff who had breached the fire exits.
Maya looked down at the subdued gangsters, then looked at Luca, who stood covered in soot, blood, and sweat beside his workers.
""The federal marshals are outside, Luca,"" Maya called down through the mist.
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""It’s over.""
Frank Moretti lay pinned under the boots of the very maintenance workers he had dismissed as peasants, his empire ending not in glory, but in handcuffs on a wet basement floor.
