Chapter 12 - The Hostage on the Bluff
The static on the radio cut out with a sickening, definitive pop.
The sound of that dying radio transmission ripped the air straight out of my chest.
"Toby!" I screamed, dropping to my knees as the concrete floor beneath me seemed to tilt violently.
"Oh God, Toby!"
Leo let out a sharp, distressed whimper, feeling the sudden surge of raw panic vibrating through my body.
He wrapped his small arms around my neck, burying his face in my hair, trembling violently.
Rico didn't waste a second.
He reached down, grabbed my upper arms with firm, steady hands, and pulled me back onto my feet.
"Clara, look at me," Rico commanded, his voice slicing through the haze of my terror like a sharp blade.
"Listen to my voice."
"They didn't kill him."
"If the Commission wanted him dead, they would have dropped him in the hallway and moved on."
"They took him as leverage."
"They want the ledger, and they want Donna Rosa extracted from the estate before Arthur's federal marshals can seal the perimeter."
Arthur Vance was already barking orders into the red wall telephone.
"Get the FBI hostage rescue team on line one!" Arthur yelled at his aides.
"Deploy three tactical helicopters from the Navy Yard immediately!"
"No helicopters, Vance!" Rico roared, turning on the prosecutor with terrifying intensity.
"The moment your federal choppers appear on radar over Brooklyn Heights, they will put a bullet through Toby's head and scatter into the port traffic!"
"You don't know these men."
"They are ex-mercenaries who answer directly to Harold Sterling's black-budget security firms."
"They don't negotiate with federal agents."
Arthur hung up the receiver, his jaw clenched tight.
"Then what do you propose, Moretti? You're under federal jurisdiction."
"You cannot conduct a private military assault on your own property."
Rico stepped directly into the prosecutor's face, towering over him, radiating an aura of lethal, unbridled power.
"That property is my family's ancestral home," Rico whispered, his words dripping with venomous ice.
"I know every subterranean tunnel, every forgotten wine chute, and every blind spot in the security grid."
"My men on the ground know the terrain."
"If you want Donna Rosa and Harold Sterling in handcuffs instead of in body bags, you give me back my weapons, you give me Dante, and you let me clear that house my way."
Arthur Vance stared into Rico’s eyes for ten excruciating seconds.
The prosecutor was a man who lived by the rigid letter of the law, but looking at his weeping niece and the terrified child clinging to her collar, the rigid law felt painfully inadequate.
Arthur turned to the chief federal marshal standing at the blast door.
"Return Signor Moretti’s weapons," Arthur ordered quietly.
"Sir?" the marshal protested.
"You heard me, Marshal," Arthur snapped.
"Signor Moretti is officially designated as a civilian tactical consultant assisting in an active federal hostage rescue operation."
"Issue him three satellite radios on our encrypted frequency."
"And prepare two unmarked tactical Suburbans in the basement."
The marshal nodded grimly, handing Rico his twin shoulder holsters and extra magazines.
Rico buckled the leather harnesses across his broad shoulders with practiced, lethal efficiency.
He turned back to me.
"You and Leo stay here," Rico said gently, his large hand cupping the side of my face, his thumb softly brushing away a stray tear.
"You are safe inside this bunker."
"Arthur will protect you both."
"I'm not staying here, Rico," I said, my voice hardening with an absolute resolve that surprised even myself.
"Clara, it's an active combat zone—"
"Toby is my brother!" I cut him off, stepping closer until our chests almost touched.
"He has severe asthma! If he doesn't have his inhaler, he will suffocate in less than an hour from stress alone!"
"I have his rescue medication in my bag."
"And Leo will not let you walk out of this room without me."
As if confirming my words, Leo reached his other hand out and grabbed the lapel of Rico's suit jacket, refusing to let either of us pull away.
The boy looked between his father and me, his little brow furrowed with unmistakable clarity.
He had already lost his mother.
He was not going to let the storm swallow the only two people who had pulled him out of the dark.
Rico looked down at his son's clinging hands, then met my unyielding gray eyes.
A heavy, resigned breath escaped his lips.
"You stay in the rear command vehicle with Arthur until the breach is confirmed," Rico conceded, his tone brooking no argument.
"The moment the perimeter is clear, you bring the medicine in."
"Understood," I agreed.
Twenty minutes later, two black, unmarked tactical Suburbans tore through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel at ninety miles an hour, their covert blue strobe lights flashing behind the dark grilles.
The rain had turned into a torrential downpour, washing over the city like a deluge meant to drown all its sins.
As we exited the tunnel onto the Brooklyn side, Dante checked his tactical tablet on the center console.
"Boss, the Commission's strike team has established a defensive perimeter inside the main house," Dante reported, his wounded shoulder bound tightly in military webbing.
"They've got snipers on the upper terrace overlooking the harbor."
"Donna Rosa has been moved from the guest cottage back into the main library."
"And they've got the kid... Toby... tied to a chair in the central conservatory."
"Surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass," Rico growled, his eyes narrowing into slits of pure fury.
"They're using him as a human bait."
"They know I won't use heavy ordnance on the conservatory because the glass would shred him to pieces."
Rico grabbed his satellite radio, switching to the private frequency of his loyal estate guards.
"Marco," Rico called out.
"Boss!" the restaurant manager's voice crackled through the speaker.
Marco wasn't just a maitre d' at Il Destino; he was an old family soldier who had served Rico's father for thirty years.
"We're holding the carriage house with eight men, boss!" Marco shouted over the sound of distant gunfire.
"They've got heavy caliber rifles covering the main lawn!"
"Shut off the estate's main electrical grid from the carriage sub-station," Rico ordered coldly.
"Cut the backup generators on the south line."
"Plunge the entire bluff into total darkness."
"On my mark, boss?"
Rico racked the slide of a suppressed tactical carbine he pulled from the vehicle's floor rack.
May you like
"On my mark, Marco."
"When the lights go out, Brooklyn bleeds."
