Chapter 7 - The Dungeon and the Bride
The black Cadillac tore through the deserted streets of downtown Chicago like a ballistic missile.
Rainwater exploded from the gutters as Luca mounted the curb to bypass a red light on Michigan Avenue.
The tires shrieked against the wet asphalt, leaving streaks of boiling rubber behind us.
In the back seat, Dominic was tied to the structural headrests with heavy electrical wire, his injured hand wrapped tightly in a bloody rag.
Sofia sat beside me, her eyes closed, her lips moving silently in what looked like an ancient Sicilian prayer.
I clutched the passenger door handle until my fingers went numb.
“How many men does Carlo have?” I asked, my voice cutting through the roar of the supercharged engine.
Luca didn't look away from the road.
His jaw was clenched so hard the muscles jumped beneath his skin.
“Carlo maintains an independent crew of forty ex-military contractors stationed at the Calumet rail yards.”
“They don't care about syndicate politics.”
“They don't care about the Five Families.”
“They are paid in cash, and they are trained for urban assault.”
“And my home is guarded by twelve men on a holiday skeleton crew.”
He pressed the pedal into the floorboards.
The engine screamed as the speedometer needle buried itself past one hundred and ten miles an hour.
We crossed the bridge into the northern suburbs, leaving the neon haze of the city behind for the dark, wooded avenues of the Gold Coast.
The Moretti estate sat behind twelve-foot wrought-iron gates, surrounded by centuries-old oak trees that whipped wildly in the storm.
As we approached the front entrance, my stomach dropped through the floorboards.
The massive iron gates were not locked.
They had been blown off their heavy stone hinges, hanging crookedly like broken teeth.
Tire tracks dug deep, muddy trenches through the manicured front lawn.
The sprawling limestone mansion stood completely dark against the midnight sky, save for the flickering amber strobes of the auxiliary emergency lights.
Luca killed the Escalade’s headlights three hundred yards out and rolled the vehicle into the dense tree line.
He turned off the ignition.
The sudden silence inside the car was deafening.
Through the rain, the sound of muffled gunfire echoed from the rear courtyard.
Short, controlled bursts.
Tactical fire.
Luca reached into the rear cargo compartment and pulled out two lightweight ballistic vests and a tactical shotgun.
He handed one vest to me.
“Put it on.”
I looked at the heavy kevlar panels.
“Mr. Moretti, I am—”
“You’re alive, Rachel,” Luca interrupted, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look directly into his eyes.
“And as long as you are with me, I intend to keep you that way.”
“Put the vest on.”
I slipped the heavy armor over my head and pulled the velcro straps tight against my ribs.
It smelled of clean synthetic fiber and cold steel.
Luca strapped his own vest on with practiced, effortless speed.
He turned to Dominic, who was groaning against the leather seat.
Luca pulled the combat knife from his belt and sliced Dominic’s bonds, tossing him roughly against the passenger door.
“You stay in this car with Sofia,” Luca said.
“If you try to run, Dominic, Marco has orders to track you through your cell signal and put a bullet through your spine.”
Dominic nodded feebly, his face drenched in cold sweat, too broken to resist.
Luca turned to Sofia.
“Lock the doors from the inside.”
“Do not open them for anyone except me or Rachel.”
Sofia reached out and grasped his wrist, her grip surprisingly firm.
“The cellar, Luca,” she whispered, her gray eyes burning with sudden clarity.
“What about it?”
“Angelo built a drainage tunnel beneath the wine cellar in 1998 during the city water renovations.”
“It exits behind the boat house on the private canal.”
“If Carlo’s men know the layout, they aren't coming through the front door.”
“They are going beneath you to pull Vanessa out.”
Luca’s eyes flashed with lethal understanding.
“They don't want a firefight with my guards.”
“They want their heiress and the estate deeds before sunrise.”
He checked the chamber of his shotgun with a sharp, metallic clack.
“Rachel, stay behind me.”
“Step where I step.”
“Do not make a sound.”
We slipped out of the vehicle and into the pouring rain.
The cold drops stung my skin, but the heat of adrenaline kept my muscles moving.
We moved through the thick foliage along the western edge of the estate, using the towering boxwood hedges for cover.
Ahead of us, the mansion’s side entrance—the servant’s door I used every morning at six o'clock—hung slightly ajar.
The deadbolt had been sheared off with a hydraulic spreader.
Inside the corridor, the air smelled of ozone, burned copper, and damp earth.
Two of Luca’s perimeter guards lay motionless near the base of the servant stairs, their tactical vests torn by close-range rifle fire.
Luca checked their pulses with two fingers on their necks.
He shook his head once, his jaw tightening into iron.
He pointed toward the heavy reinforced door at the end of the stone corridor.
The wine cellar.
The iron door was unlocked, its magnetic security keypad smoking from an EMP charge.
Luca led the way down the circular stone staircase, his shotgun leveled at the shadows below.
The wine cellar was a massive, subterranean vault with vaulted brick ceilings, lined with thousands of vintage bottles in dark oak racks.
At the far end of the vault sat the private tasting room, enclosed behind reinforced steel security bars.
Vanessa Bellini was sitting on the stone floor, her crimson satin dress stained with dust and grime.
Her expensive makeup was smeared across her cheeks, but when she saw us emerge from the gloom, her posture transformed.
The terror vanished, replaced by a vicious, triumphant smirk.
“You’re too late, Luca,” Vanessa purred, rising slowly to her feet and dusting the cobwebs from her silk skirt.
“My uncle Carlo is already on the grounds.”
“Your guards are dead or pinned down in the security wing.”
“And my father is going to strip you of every square inch of this city.”
Luca walked slowly toward the steel bars of the holding cell.
The light from the emergency floodlamp cast deep, predatory shadows across his features.
He stopped three inches from the iron grate.
“Your father is dead, Vanessa.”
Vanessa’s smirk froze.
A high-pitched, nervous laugh slipped from her lips.
“Nice try, Luca.”
“Hector Bellini doesn't die.”
“He owns the police, he owns the judges, and he owns the banking commission.”
Luca reached into his pocket and pulled out Hector’s gold signet ring, stained with a dark smear of dried blood.
He let it drop through the bars.
The heavy gold band hit the stone floor, bouncing twice before rolling to a stop against the toe of Vanessa’s designer heel.
Vanessa stared down at the ring.
Her breath stopped in her throat.
She recognized the family crest carved into the bloodied gold—the twin falcons of the Bellini bloodline.
Her face lost every trace of color, turning the shade of spoiled milk.
“No...” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“No, that’s impossible... he was downtown... he had twenty armed men...”
“Sofia shot him,” Luca said coldly.
Vanessa looked up, her eyes wide with uncomprehending horror.
“The... the old woman?”
“The woman you kept drugged in my attic for three years,” Luca continued, his voice dropping into a lethal, quiet register.
“The woman you called a useless ghost while you picked out wedding flowers.”
Vanessa fell to her knees, her trembling hands hovering over the bloodied ring, afraid to touch it.
“You... you killed my father...”
“Sofia took back her life,” Luca corrected.
“And now your uncle Carlo is here to clean up the mess you created.”
Suddenly, the brick wall behind the wine racks at the rear of the vault shuddered violently.
Mortar dust rained down from the ceiling as the heavy stone groaned under massive external pressure.
The sound of an iron gate grinding against gravel resonated through the subterranean chamber.
The old drainage tunnel.
Sofia’s warning had been exact to the minute.
From the darkness behind the wine racks, the silhouette of three men in black tactical gear materialized, their assault rifles raised.
At the front of the group stood a broad, stocky man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a scar splitting his left eyebrow.
Carlo Bellini.
Carlo looked through the iron bars at his niece, then shifted his cold, dead eyes onto Luca Moretti.
May you like
“Step away from the cage, boy,” Carlo rasped, leveling his rifle directly at Luca’s chest.
“Before I paint these vintage bottles with your brains.”
