Chapter 8 - The Breach of the East Wing
The air inside the subterranean wine cellar went completely rigid.
The only sound was the slow, rhythmic dripping of water leaking from the cracked brickwork overhead.
Luca did not step away from the bars.
He didn't raise his hands.
He stood motionless, his shotgun resting casually across his forearm, his dark eyes locked onto Carlo Bellini’s scarred face.
“You brought three men to kill me in my own cellar, Carlo?” Luca asked, his voice dripping with condescending amusement.
“I brought enough men to secure my niece and take what belongs to my family,” Carlo countered, his finger tightening against the rifle’s curved trigger.
“Where is Hector?”
Luca gestured with his chin toward the bloody signet ring resting near Vanessa’s knees on the stone floor.
Carlo’s eyes flickered down for a fraction of a second.
He saw the gold.
He saw the blood.
A deep, animalistic twitch spasmed through Carlo’s scarred brow.
“You murdered my brother,” Carlo hissed.
“He died trying to steal an empire that was never his,” Luca replied.
Behind Carlo, the two tactical contractors shifted their weight, their boots scuffing against the gravel of the drainage floor.
They were professionals, scanning the room for secondary threats.
Their rifle lights cut through the dusty gloom, sweeping across the dark oak racks.
Suddenly, one of the beams caught the reflective strip on my ballistic vest.
“Target on the left!” the contractor barked.
In that split second, the world exploded into violence.
Luca didn't hesitate.
He dove behind a massive, two-hundred-year-old oak wine cask just as Carlo’s rifle erupted.
High-caliber rounds tore into the aged wood, sending geysers of vintage red wine and splintered oak showering across the stone floor.
The scent of aged cabernet and cordite filled the subterranean air like a bloody fog.
Luca fired back with his tactical shotgun.
The blast was deafening in the enclosed stone vault.
The heavy buckshot tore through the chest rig of the first contractor, lifting him completely off his feet and throwing him backward into the shattered brick tunnel.
The man hit the ground and didn't move.
“Rachel! Get to the servant stairs!” Luca roared over the deafening echoes of gunfire.
I scrambled across the slick stone floor on my hands and knees, my palms cutting against shattered glass and soaking in the spilled wine.
Bullets chipped the masonry inches above my head, raining sharp stone fragments into my hair.
Carlo dragged Vanessa through the breached iron grate at the rear of the holding cell.
“Move, you stupid girl!” Carlo snarled, hauling her by the arm into the darkness of the drainage tunnel.
The remaining contractor laid down a continuous stream of suppressive fire, chewing through the wooden wine racks to cover their retreat.
Luca pumped another shell into the chamber and leaned around the pulverized oak cask.
He fired.
The second contractor took the blast to the shoulder, spinning around and dropping his rifle into the muck.
He scrambled desperately into the dark tunnel after Carlo and Vanessa.
Luca broke into a dead sprint, his boots splashing through the pool of wine and blood.
I jumped to my feet and followed him, the compact pistol gripped tightly in both hands.
We emerged from the subterranean drainage pipe into the stormy darkness of the rear gardens.
The rain was falling in torrential sheets, turning the sloping lawn into a treacherous mudslide.
Ahead of us, Carlo and his wounded contractor were hauling Vanessa toward a waiting black tactical van near the boathouse.
The boathouse sat on a narrow canal connected to the northern branch of the Chicago River.
Suddenly, the headlights of the tactical van flared to life, blinding us in the torrential downpour.
The engine roared as the tires spun frantically in the sodden grass, throwing thick rooster-tails of mud into the air.
Carlo threw Vanessa into the side sliding door and swung himself into the passenger seat.
“Luca!” a voice shouted from the shadows of the garden terrace.
It was Marco.
His tactical vest was shredded, a bloody bandage wrapped around his left bicep, but his rifle was up.
“They have three more vehicles blocking the main canal bridge!” Marco yelled over the howling wind.
“They aren't trying to escape into the city!”
“They’re heading for the private marina in Wilmette!”
Luca raised his shotgun and fired three rapid slugs into the rear tires of the fleeing tactical van.
The heavy rubber shredded with explosive pops, sending the heavy vehicle fishtailing wildly across the terrace grass.
The van slammed sideways into the stone balustrade of the garden terrace, the impact buckling the front axle with a horrific metallic crunch.
The engine sputtered and died in a cloud of hissing white radiator steam.
The sliding door flew open.
Carlo spilled out into the mud, his face bleeding from a deep laceration across his cheek.
He dragged Vanessa with him, using her body as a clumsy human shield as he scrambled toward the wooden steps of the private boathouse.
“Stay back, Luca!” Carlo screamed, pulling a heavy revolver from his belt and pressing the barrel against his own niece’s temple.
“I will blow her brains across this deck! I swear to God I will!”
Vanessa was shrieking, completely broken by terror.
“Uncle Carlo, please! It’s me! It’s Vanessa!”
“Shut up, you useless brat!” Carlo spat, his eyes wild with unhinged desperation.
“Your stupidity cost us the Moretti accounts!”
“Your stupidity killed my brother!”
“The only thing you are worth now is five minutes of breathing room!”
Luca walked slowly toward the boathouse, stepping onto the soaked wooden planks.
The rain plastered his dark hair to his skull.
His shotgun hung loose in his left hand, pointed safely at the decking.
“Let her go, Carlo.”
“You don't care about her, Moretti!” Carlo laughed, a wet, manic sound.
“You locked her in a dog cage an hour ago!”
“I locked her up because she is a criminal,” Luca said calmly, closing the distance step by step.
“You are threatening to murder your own brother’s child.”
“That makes you an animal.”
“And I put animals down.”
From behind the boathouse wall, a frail shadow moved silently through the rain.
It was Sofia.
She had not stayed in the Cadillac.
She had followed the sounds of the gunfire, moving through the terrace paths with the quiet familiarity of someone who had known this estate for fifty years.
In her hands, she carried an iron garden lever she had pulled from the tool shed.
Carlo was so focused on Luca’s slow, menacing approach that he never saw the seventy-year-old woman emerge from the gloom behind him.
Sofia stepped forward with the last ounce of strength in her battered body.
She swung the heavy iron lever with both hands, striking Carlo squarely across the back of his right knee.
The sickening sound of cartilage tearing tore through the howling storm.
Carlo’s leg gave out beneath him with an explosive shriek of agony.
His revolver flew from his slick fingers, clattering across the wet wooden deck and plunging into the black, churning waters of the canal.
Vanessa tore herself free from his grasp, scrambling backward across the planks on her hands and knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
Carlo rolled onto his back in the mud, clutching his shattered knee, his face twisted in blinding pain.
He looked up into the barrel of Luca’s shotgun.
Luca stood over him like an ancient god of retribution.
“My father spared your life in Sicily thirty years ago, Carlo,” Luca said softly.
“He believed that even traitors deserved a chance to live in exile.”
“My father was a better man than I will ever be.”
Luca pulled the trigger.
The heavy blast echoed across the canal, swallowed instantly by the roaring thunder of the storm.
Carlo Bellini’s body went limp against the soaked wooden planks of the boathouse deck.
The rain washed his blood into the dark waters below, carrying the final remnants of the Bellini rebellion out toward Lake Michigan.
Vanessa curled into a fetal position against the boathouse railing, her ruined dress soaked in mud and rain, staring at the body of her uncle.
Luca lowered the weapon.
He turned and looked at Sofia, who stood in the pouring rain, leaning heavily on the iron tool, her chest heaving.
He dropped the shotgun onto the wood and wrapped his arms around the old woman, lifting her off her feet as she wept against his shoulder.
I walked onto the deck, my hands shaking as I slipped the compact pistol back into my coat pocket.
The eastern horizon was beginning to fracture into pale shades of gray and violet.
The longest night of my life was drawing to a close.
Luca looked over his aunt’s shoulder, his dark eyes finding mine through the falling rain.
“Rachel,” he said, his voice thick with raw emotion.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Call Marco.”
“Tell him the house is secure.”
“Then get some dry clothes.”
He looked down at the twin silver pendants resting against his chest.
May you like
“Because at nine o’clock this morning, we are going to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.”
“It’s time to claim my father’s ghost.”
