Chapter 7 - THE SHADOW OVER THE PRECINCT
The rain turned to sleet by four in the morning, coating the city streets in a slick layer of black ice.
Inside the bullet-riddled wreckage of the Mercer Street brownstone, Marco DeLuca stood in the center of the ruined parlor.
His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his charcoal cashmere overcoat, his knuckles bleeding where he had struck the brick wall in fury.
On the floor lay the bodies of three mercenaries, their tactical gear stripped of all identifying insignia.
Beside the shattered fireplace, Martha was kneeling over Anthony DeLuca, applying pressure to a gunshot wound in the old man's abdomen.
Anthony was pale, his breathing shallow and rattling, but his grey eyes remained as cold and unyielding as flint.
"They escaped through the coal chute, Marco," Anthony rasped, coughing up a fine mist of blood.
"The maid... that girl has more iron in her spine than your entire executive council."
Marco knelt beside his grandfather, his voice trembling with an agonizing mixture of relief and fury.
"I should have been here, Grandfather."
"I was delayed by a staged multi-car accident at the bridge."
"Julian timed the diversion down to the second."
Anthony gripped Marco's lapel with surprising strength, pulling his grandson down until their faces were inches apart.
"Julian didn't act alone, Marco," the old man whispered, his fingernails digging through the expensive wool.
"Look at the weapons these men carried."
"They are carrying federal-grade suppressed submachine guns from the municipal armory."
"Detective Harris cleared the path, and someone on our governing board approved the budget."
"They don't just want Elena's murder buried... they want to erase you and take the entire shipping monopoly."
A heavy step echoed on the porch outside the shattered doorway.
Vincent Moretti, Marco's second-in-command and the only capo who had answered Marco's emergency summons, stepped into the ruined parlor.
Moretti’s face was grim, his trench coat soaked through with sleet.
"Boss, we have an catastrophic problem on the public wires," Moretti announced, holding up an encrypted smartphone.
Marco stood up slowly, his jaw set in a hard line.
"Speak, Vincent."
"Detective Harris just held an emergency press briefing on the steps of Central Headquarters," Moretti said, his voice laced with venom.
"He released an emergency Amber Alert to every television station, radio broadcast, and cell phone in the state."
"He identified Claire Morgan by name and photograph."
"The narrative is that she is an unstable domestic worker who murdered driver Daniel Vance and abducted Sophie for a twenty-million-dollar ransom."
Marco stared at his lieutenant, his vision pulsing red with blinding rage.
"Harris put a public bounty on an innocent girl who is currently bleeding to keep my child alive?"
"It's worse than that, Marco," Moretti continued, handing the phone to his boss.
"Harris issued a 'shoot on sight' advisory, claiming the suspect is armed with an automatic weapon and has declared she will not be taken alive."
"Every patrol officer, every bounty hunter, and every street gang in this city is hunting Claire Morgan right now."
"If an officer spots her before we do, they will execute her and claim Sophie was caught in the crossfire."
Marco crushed the phone against the mantelpiece until the glass shattered into his palm.
"Where is Julian right now?" Marco asked, his voice dropping into a register that made even Moretti take a step back.
"He locked down the estate on Hilltop Road," Moretti reported.
"He called an emergency meeting of the four founding families for nine o'clock this morning."
"He claims you have gone rogue, that you are emotionally compromised over Elena's death, and that he is stepping in to preserve syndicate stability."
Anthony groaned from the floor, his eyes narrowing as Martha wrapped a tight pressure dressing around his torso.
"He is making his move to seize the throne before the sun comes up," Anthony muttered weakly.
"If Julian convinces the founding families that Marco murdered his own driver and lost the heir, they will vote to strip Marco of his title."
"And once Marco is stripped of his authority, nobody will question why Sophie and the maid were found dead in an alley."
Marco looked down at his grandfather, then toward the dark streets beyond the shattered window.
"Vincent, mobilize every loyal soldier we have left in the north district," Marco commanded.
"Do not wear colors, and do not use syndicate radios."
"I don't care if it takes kicking down every door between here and the river."
"Find that girl and my daughter before Harris's wolves put a bullet in their heads."
Meanwhile, three miles away in an abandoned industrial laundry depot, Claire Morgan was collapsing against a rusted iron folding table.
The fever had arrived with brutal swiftness, setting her blood ablaze while her limbs shook with uncontrollable chills.
She leaned against the concrete pillar, looking at a small battery-powered television left behind by the night watchman.
Her own face was on the screen, frozen in a cheerful driver's license photo taken three years earlier.
Beneath her face, a scrolling crimson banner read:
AMBER ALERT: ARMED AND DANGEROUS KIDNAPPER. SUSPECT CONSIDERED HIGHLY UNSTABLE.
Sophie stood beside her, staring at the screen with bewildered eyes.
"Claire... why is your picture on the news?"
May you like
Claire pulled the wool coat tighter around the girl and smiled through the pain.
"Because, Sophie, the people who tell the news are reading from the wrong book tonight."
