Chapter 5 - The Vault of Poisoned Legacies
The air in the coal tunnel smelled of damp sulfur and forgotten coal dust.
Vincent moved with the steady stride of a man walking his own territory.
Every brick in this tunnel had been laid by Italian masons paid by his grandfather in 1924.
It had been built to move liquor during Prohibition.
Tonight, it was the only thing standing between the Don and an unmarked grave.
Elena followed three paces back, her ears tuned to the iron grates above.
"Why did Marcus hate you?" she asked suddenly, her voice barely louder than the dripping water.
Vincent did not turn around.
"Marcus believes I let his father die."
"Did you?"
"Dominic was reckless," Vincent answered coldly.
"He ran a side operation in Atlantic City without the commission's blessing."
"A crew out of Philadelphia cornered him in a motel."
"I was twenty miles away when the call came."
"By the time my car reached the boardwalk, Dominic was already gone."
"Marcus was eight years old."
"I took him into my house."
"I gave him the best schools, the finest clothes, and a seat at my right hand."
"And Tony filled his ears with poison," Elena added.
"Tony told him I ordered the hit on Dominic so I could take the entire organization myself."
They reached an iron spiral staircase that led upward into the floor of the carriage house.
Through the gaps in the cast-iron treads, faint streaks of red light cut through the gloom.
The external emergency lights on the service vehicles were blinking through the windows.
Elena held up her hand, stopping Vincent on the lower landing.
Two men were standing by the workbench on the ground floor of the garage.
Both carried automatic shotguns and wore communication headsets.
"Tony wants us to sweep the cellar," one muttered.
"He says the power cut was manual."
"Let the contractors do it," the other replied.
"We get paid the same whether Vincent dies in the basement or the garden."
Elena glanced at Vincent.
She held up two fingers, then pointed to the left side of the carriage house.
Vincent nodded once.
Elena slipped off her boots, moving in thick woolen socks across the iron steps without making a whisper.
Vincent drew his weapon, his breath slow and controlled.
Elena reached the top of the stairs, pulled the pin on one of the emergency flares, and struck the cap.
A brilliant, blinding ball of red-white fire erupted in the dark garage.
The two guards shouted in pain as the intense light overwhelmed their night-vision optics.
They dropped their shotguns, clawing at their goggles to strip them from their faces.
Vincent rose from the stairwell and fired three controlled double-taps.
The two men collapsed against the hood of an armored SUV, their bodies sliding into the puddle of grease below.
Elena did not pause to inspect the dead.
She extinguished the flare in a bucket of standing rainwater by the tool bench.
The sudden return of darkness was heavy and disorienting.
Vincent stepped past the fallen guards to the gun cabinet bolted behind the pegboard.
He entered a mechanical code on the three-wheel tumbler.
The metal door swung open, revealing four tactical rifles and boxes of ammunition.
He grabbed a short-barreled Colt carbine and tossed two spare magazines to Elena.
"Do you know how to run this platform?" he asked.
"My father kept one in the bedroom closet," she replied, locking the magazine into place with an audible snap.
The garage door shuddered as something heavy slammed into the exterior metal.
A megaphone clicked on outside the carriage house.
"Vincent!"
The voice boomed across the asphalt yard, distorted by the speaker.
It was Marcus.
"We know you’re in the carriage house, Uncle!"
"You don't have an exit!"
"The entire south meadow is covered by three sniper teams!"
"Throw the ledger out the service door and come out with your hands up!"
"I promise it will be quick!"
"More than you gave my father!"
Vincent walked to the narrow slit of the carriage house window, looking through the reinforced glass.
Marcus was standing fifty yards back, sheltered behind the open door of an armored limousine.
Beside him stood Tony Bellini, wearing a heavy winter parka and holding a tactical radio.
Behind them, thirty armed men had formed a semi-circle around the carriage house.
The rain was turning into sleet, coating the black asphalt with a thin sheet of gray ice.
Elena came to Vincent’s shoulder, her eyes fixed on Tony.
"Tony is wearing Kevlar beneath that coat," she noted.
"I don't care about the coat," Vincent said.
"I care about the page."
Vincent pulled the black leather book from his coat pocket and opened it beneath the low glow of the dash lights.
On the inside of the front cover, written in faded black ink, was Samuel Marquez’s tight, elegant handwriting.
If you are reading this, Vincent, I am already dead.
Do not look for enemies across the river.
Look across your dinner table.
The bloodline is poisoned from within.
Vincent touched the paper where his old friend’s pen had pressed into the grain.
"Samuel tried to warn me," Vincent said softly.
"He tried three times," Elena said.
"You were too busy conquering the docks to listen to an old lawyer who didn't carry a gun."
May you like
Vincent closed the book with a quiet snap.
"I am listening now."
