Chapter 13 - The Battle for Bay Three
The darkness inside the main maintenance hangar was alive with lethal intent.
Through the broken skylights, the Chicago rain drizzled down onto rows of suspended truck chassis, creating a haunting soundtrack of dripping water and distant thunder.
Riley moved through the shadows of the mezzanine catwalk like a ghost who knew every rusted nail and loose floorboard of her ancestral kingdom.
In her hands, she clutched a heavy, eighteen-inch steel pipe wrench—the same tool she had used to break rusted lug nuts since she was fourteen.
Beside her, Matteo moved with terrifying silence, staying below the level of the steel safety railing, his firearm held close to his chest in a low-ready stance.
Down on the shop floor, four tactical operatives in urban camouflage and night-vision optics were moving with military precision toward the reinforced concrete slab of bay three.
Behind them walked a tall, immaculate man in a dark cashmere coat, holding an umbrella over his head despite being indoors.
He had silver-streaked hair, aristocratically sharp cheekbones, and an unhurried, graceful stride that matched Matteo’s own with terrifying resemblance.
Dominic Moretti.
The ghost of the Eastern syndicate had returned from the dead.
"Set the diamond-core drill rigs on the secondary seam," Dominic’s voice carried through the cavernous hangar, smooth, cultivated, and completely devoid of human warmth. "We have precisely seventeen minutes before the municipal police respond to the perimeter blackout."
"What about the girl and Matteo?" one of the masked operatives asked, kneeling with a heavy hydraulic demolition tool.
"If they are still in the building, kill them cleanly," Dominic replied without even looking up from his platinum pocket watch. "My sister Elena was a sentimental fool who let personal drama cloud her judgment. Marcus is dead. Julian is an idiot. When the vault is cleared, the Duca legacy dies tonight."
Riley’s jaw locked so hard her teeth felt ready to shatter.
She looked at Matteo in the dim red glow of the emergency lights.
Matteo was staring down at his uncle, his amber eyes completely devoid of mercy, radiating a primal, ancient hatred that transcended corporate balance sheets.
He leaned close to Riley’s ear, his breath warm against her cold skin.
"Can you cut the main air lines to the hydraulic lifts?" he whispered.
Riley looked down at the four massive commercial vehicle hoists supporting thirty-ton dump trucks directly above the heads of the tactical crew.
Her eyes flashed with wicked, brilliant understanding.
"The master pressure relief valve is right behind the tool cage on the eastern wall," she whispered back.
"Make them look up," Matteo said, his lips curling into that lethal, familiar half-smile. "I will handle the rest."
Riley slipped away through the shadows of the catwalk, moving along the rusted iron beams toward the eastern maintenance platform.
She knew this building better than the architect who drew it.
She knew which beam wouldn't creak, which ladder rung was loose, and how to drop twelve feet into a pile of scrap rubber without making a sound.
She landed behind the heavy steel mesh of the central tool cage like a panther.
She reached out, feeling the cold, greasy brass handle of the primary five-hundred-PSI pneumatic release valve.
She took a deep breath, braced her boots against the concrete, and yanked the emergency lever down with all her strength.
HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
A deafening, concussive scream of high-pressure compressed air exploded through the hangar like a detonating jet engine.
The four masked operatives spun instantly toward the eastern wall, their assault rifles coming up to acquire the target.
"East flank! Contact!" the lead shooter screamed.
At that exact split second, the pneumatic pressure maintaining the hydraulic locks on lift number two failed catastrophically.
A thirty-ton municipal garbage truck tipped sideways off its steel cradle, crashing down onto the concrete with the force of an earthquake.
The deafening roar of crumpling steel, exploding tempered glass, and shearing metal shook the entire foundation of the facility.
The two operatives operating the diamond drill were instantly crushed beneath the falling chassis, their screams cut short in the chaos.
From the high mezzanine above, Matteo opened fire.
Three crisp, synchronized gunshots echoed through the cavernous room like thunderclaps.
The third operative collapsed clutching his shoulder, his weapon clattering across the oily floor.
The fourth shooter dove behind a steel tool chest, returning blind, panicked automatic fire toward the catwalk rafters, chewing through the sheet-metal siding and raining down cascades of burning insulation.
Dominic Moretti didn't run.
He discarded his black umbrella, drew an antique chrome-plated Browning Hi-Power from his cashmere coat, and fired two precise shots into the darkness where Matteo had been standing.
"Come down, nephew!" Dominic’s cultured voice rang out over the hiss of escaping steam and hydraulic fluid. "Let us finish what your father was too cowardly to resolve in Geneva thirty years ago!"
"My father wasn't a coward, Dominic," Matteo’s voice materialized from the ground-floor shadows, not twenty feet away. "He was patient."
Dominic spun, raising his weapon.
Before he could acquire his sight picture, Riley emerged from the smoke behind him like an avenging fury.
She swung the eighteen-inch steel pipe wrench in a brutal, horizontal arc.
The heavy cast iron smashed directly into Dominic’s right forearm with a sickening, audible snap of bone.
The chrome pistol went flying through the air, skittering across the slick floorboards into the open grease pit.
Dominic let out a ragged, strangled roar of agony, clutching his shattered arm as he stumbled backward against the concrete wall of the mechanic bay.
He looked up through the smoke and haze, his aristocratic face twisted into a mask of pure, murderous disbelief.
Riley stood before him, the heavy iron wrench resting casually on her shoulder, her boots planted wide, her amber eyes burning with unadulterated blue-collar wrath.
"That was for my father’s garage, you arrogant piece of garbage," Riley snarled.
Dominic let out a snarling, desperate laugh, lunging for a ceramic boot knife concealed in his ankle holster with his left hand.
He never completed the draw.
Matteo crossed the distance in two thunderous strides.
His heavy tactical boot struck Dominic squarely in the chest, lifting the older man off his feet and slamming him violently through the wooden partition of the tool supply office.
Dominic crashed through the shelves, buried beneath stacks of oil filters, heavy chains, and rusted brake drums.
Matteo stepped through the ruined doorway, his Glock leveled directly between Dominic Moretti’s eyes.
The silver-haired mobster lay groaning among the debris, spitting blood across the dust, looking up into the cold, pitiless gaze of his sister’s stepson.
"Shoot me, boy," Dominic wheezed, his mouth filling with crimson. "Kill me... and the federal quarantine remains permanent... the port will rot in court... you lose everything anyway..."
Matteo slowly lowered the barrel of the weapon.
Dominic’s eyes widened with mocking triumph. "I knew it... you still have Marcus's soft, bleeding heart..."
"I don't need to shoot you, Dominic," Matteo whispered, reaching into his pocket and pulling out an active satellite uplink communicator displaying a live federal video feed.
The screen showed United States Marshals and FBI tactical teams storming the private jet terminal at O’Hare International Airport, apprehending four of Dominic’s senior lieutenants alongside eighteen million dollars of unregistered currency.
"Agent Ward wasn't working for you, Dominic," Matteo revealed, his voice dropping into pure, executive venom. "She was working for me since two o'clock yesterday afternoon."
Dominic’s breath caught in his throat, his face turning the color of wet ashes.
"What?"
"I don't leave my corporate flanks unprotected," Matteo said calmly. "We fed your offshore broker the fraudulent shipping manifest forty-eight hours ago to lure you out of Canada and onto this exact concrete floor."
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Matteo leaned down, his eyes boring into the broken soul of the man who had ordered his mother's murder thirty years ago.
"You didn't break into our vault, Dominic. You walked directly into my slaughterhouse."
