Chapter 13 - Fire and Timber on the Mystic
The first bullet shattered the upper transom window of the workshop, raining shards of frosted industrial glass onto the concrete floor.
The report of the suppressed rifle was not a loud bang, but a sharp, pneumatic thwack that struck the heavy oak timber of the lathe.
Clara Vance shrieked, dropping instantly to her knees behind a stack of rough-hewn cherry boards, covering her head with her hands.
“Move, now!” Luca ordered, his arm locking around my waist as he hauled me backward behind the massive iron carcass of a century-old bandsaw.
A second and third round tore through the wooden wall behind us, chewing through pine shelving and sending clouds of aromatic sawdust into the air.
Martin returned fire from the bay door, three rapid, deafening shots that echoed like cannon fire inside the enclosed brick structure.
A man outside cursed in Italian, followed by the heavy thud of a body collapsing against the wet cobblestones of the alley.
“Martin, seal the roller door!” Luca shouted across the echoing room, peering around the cast-iron frame of the bandsaw.
Martin lunged for the chain hoist beside the entrance, yanking downward with all his weight.
The corrugated steel door rattled violently along its vertical tracks, slamming down against the concrete threshold with a booming clang.
He threw the heavy horizontal steel slide bolt into place, locking the front entrance just as a spray of automatic gunfire pitted the exterior sheet metal.
The workshop was plunged into semi-darkness, illuminated only by the gray daylight filtering through the broken transom glass high above.
I crawled on my elbows across the floor to the antique Mosler floor safe recessed beneath my father’s drafting table.
My hands were covered in sawdust and sweat, but my fingers knew the combination by heart: four turns right to 34, two turns left to 18, right to 92.
The heavy cast-iron door swung open with a smooth, oiled glide.
Inside lay my father’s black canvas-bound accounting ledger, his brass caliper set, and a tarnished steel key stamped with the letter B.
I grabbed the ledger and the key, shoving them into the deep pockets of my heavy canvas work apron before scrambling back to Luca’s side.
Luca dropped his empty magazine onto the floor, slapped a fresh twelve-round clip into the pistol grip, and racked the slide with a clean metallic snap.
He looked down at me, his eyes sweeping over my face to ensure I wasn't bleeding.
“Are you hit?” he asked, his voice steady, his breathing completely controlled despite the siege outside.
“No,” I breathed, clutching the cold cast iron of the bandsaw.
“Luca, there’s an escape route through the basement timber kiln. It leads directly out to the municipal dry dock basin.”
Clara crawled out from behind the cherry lumber, her face smeared with black dust, her trench coat torn at the shoulder.
“We can’t go to the docks!” she sobbed, all of her previous arrogance entirely dissolved into primal terror.
“They have spotters on the Mystic River bridge! They’ll pick us off the moment we hit open water!”
“Shut up, Clara,” Luca commanded, not even glancing at her.
He turned his attention toward the rear of the workshop, where a heavy wooden hatch was set flush into the floorboards.
Suddenly, a sickening, sweet smell drifted through the broken transom windows—the sharp, chemical stench of commercial gasoline.
Through the cracks in the corrugated roller door, an orange glow blossomed into violent life.
The attackers weren't trying to breach the workshop on foot anymore; they were dousing the historic timber building in accelerant to burn us alive.
“They’re torching the perimeter,” Martin said, retreating from the front wall as the heat began to radiate through the steel sheets.
“We have about three minutes before the structural joists catch fire.”
“To the kiln, now!” Luca ordered, grabbing Clara by the collar of her trench coat and hauling her to her feet with one arm.
Martin dropped to his knees, hauled open the heavy iron ring of the floor hatch, and disappeared down the narrow wooden steps into the darkness below.
Luca pushed Clara down the opening next, then turned to me, his dark eyes burning with an intensity that outshone the rising flames.
“Sarah, go. Stay directly behind Martin.”
“Not without you, Luca,” I said, gripping his leather sleeve.
“I am not losing another man I care about in this building.”
The words spilled out of me before I could filter them, raw and unvarnished in the face of imminent destruction.
Luca froze for a fraction of a second, his gray eyes softening into something deep, powerful, and entirely protective.
He leaned down, pressed his lips fiercely against mine for a brief, breathless moment amidst the falling sparks and smoke, then broke away.
“I’m right behind you,” he whispered against my forehead.
“Now move!”
I dropped down the hatch into the cool, damp subterranean air of the old timber seasoning kiln.
The space was narrow, lined with century-old granite blocks and damp earth that smelled of moss, charcoal, and subterranean river water.
Above us, the antique heart-pine timbers of Bennett & Sons groaned and popped as the flames consumed forty years of my family’s history.
Tears of grief and adrenaline poured down my face, but I kept moving, following the bobbing beam of Martin’s tactical flashlight.
At the end of the stone tunnel stood a rusted iron grate secured by an industrial padlock—the outlet that discharged kiln condensation into the river basin.
I pulled the tarnished steel key stamped with the letter B from my apron pocket and shoved it into Martin’s hand.
“Use this,” I shouted over the muffled roar of the inferno collapsing the floor above us.
Martin shoved the key into the corroded keyhole, turned it with a brutal twist of his wrist, and kicked the heavy iron grate outward.
The grate swung open, revealing the cold, dark waters of the Mystic River lapping against the timber pilings of Dry Dock 3.
Idling quietly in the shadow of the concrete wharf was a sleek, thirty-foot aluminum tactical patrol boat, painted in matte black with no registration numbers.
Standing at the helm, wearing a heavy navy foul-weather jacket and holding a marine VHF radio, was Luca’s sister, Elena.
She threw two mooring lines onto the stone ledge the instant she saw Martin emerge from the drainage conduit.
“Get in! Get in now!” Elena cried out against the rumble of the twin diesel outboards.
Martin helped Clara scramble aboard, practically throwing the trembling woman onto the non-skid deck of the cockpit.
I climbed down next, landing heavily on the aluminum deck, turning immediately to reach for Luca.
Luca dropped through the opening just as a roaring cascade of burning timber and molten tar collapsed into the kiln tunnel behind him.
He caught the gunwale of the patrol boat, swung his long legs over the side, and threw the lines clear into the water.
“Throttle down, Elena!” Luca ordered, racketing the slide of his weapon as he scanned the smoke-covered shoreline.
Elena slammed the twin throttles forward.
The heavy aluminum craft surged through the gray harbor chop, throwing a high white wake as it raced away from the burning wreckage of my father’s shop.
I stood at the stern, watching the orange flames leap eighty feet into the gray Massachusetts sky, consuming the only physical home I had ever known.
Luca walked up behind me, wrapping his heavy overcoat around my shoulders, his strong arms pulling me back against his chest.
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“I will rebuild it, Sarah,” he whispered into my hair as the cold salt spray hit our faces.
“Brick by brick, timber by timber. But first, we end the men who lit the match.”
