Chapter 5 - THE WAREHOUSE ON THE SOUTH SIDE
Luca spun the heavy SUV around, the tires screaming against the wet asphalt. He didn't say a word, but the lethal focus in his eyes was terrifying. He pushed the speedometer past ninety, weaving through the midnight traffic back toward the city.
“Vanessa,” I said into the speakerphone, my voice remarkably steady despite the panic clawing at my throat. “Why are you telling us this? You were going to let Luca marry you while keeping his nephew hidden forever.”
A jagged sob crackled through the phone speaker.
“Because he’s my son, Emma!” she cried, the glamorous, arrogant woman I knew entirely stripped away. “I was terrified of the syndicate. I thought if they knew Alessandro had an heir, they would kill him to prevent a succession war. I thought I was protecting him! But when Marco dragged him out of the house… he looked at me. Oliver looked at me and asked why I was letting the bad man take him.”
She broke down crying again.
“Marco has men at the warehouse,” Vanessa managed to say. “Bellini family dropouts he’s been paying off. Don’t go in through the front, Luca. They’ll see you coming. Use the old loading dock tunnel.”
The line went dead.
Luca tossed the phone onto the dashboard. “She’s telling the truth about the tunnel. Alessandro built it years ago to move shipments out of sight.”
“Do you trust her?” I asked, clutching the door handle as we took a sharp turn into the industrial district.
“I trust that a mother doesn't want her child dead,” Luca replied grimly.
The South Side industrial park was a graveyard of abandoned factories and rust-covered storage tanks. Luca cut the headlights a quarter-mile away, navigating by the dim glow of the streetlamps cutting through the pouring rain.
He pulled the SUV into a narrow alley behind a massive, crumbling brick warehouse and cut the engine.
The silence was deafening.
Luca reached into the backseat and grabbed a tactical vest. He threw it over his white dress shirt, sliding three extra magazines into the pockets. He handed me a small, heavy black flashlight.
“Stay behind me,” Luca ordered quietly. “Do exactly what I say. If shooting starts, you get low and you don't move until I come for you.”
I nodded, my hands shaking so badly I almost dropped the flashlight.
We slipped out into the rain. Luca led me to a rusted metal grate set into the concrete floor of the alley. With a grunt of effort, he hauled the heavy iron up, revealing a dark, narrow tunnel leading beneath the warehouse.
We climbed down the rusted ladder. The smell of mold and stagnant water was overwhelming.
We moved in total darkness, guided only by Luca’s memory of the place. After fifty yards, the tunnel sloped upward, ending at a heavy steel door.
Luca pressed his ear to the cold metal.
He held up a hand, signaling me to wait. Slowly, he unlatched the door and pushed it open an inch.
Faint, yellow light spilled into the tunnel.
I peered over his shoulder.
We were looking into the main floor of the warehouse from a raised grate near the ceiling. Below us, the massive space was empty save for a single folding chair in the center of the room.
Oliver was sitting on it.
His blue sweater was damp, his small hands zip-tied in front of him. He wasn't crying anymore. He was staring at the floor, looking incredibly small and entirely defeated.
Standing ten feet away was Marco, pacing back and forth, shouting into his cell phone.
“I don't care what Don Bellini said!” Marco yelled, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. “The kid is a liability. Luca knows. We end it tonight, we dump the body in the river, and we blame Vanessa for a botched kidnapping.”
Marco hung up, throwing the phone against the wall in frustration. It shattered into pieces.
He turned to the three heavily armed men standing by the front entrance.
“Kill him,” Marco ordered, pointing at Oliver.
My heart stopped.
Luca didn't hesitate. He didn't have time to sneak down.
He kicked the steel grate outward. It ripped off its hinges and plummeted twenty feet to the concrete floor with a deafening crash.
The armed men spun around, raising their rifles toward the catwalk.
But Luca was already firing.
He moved with a terrifying, fluid precision. Two shots rang out. Two of the armed men dropped instantly.
The third man scrambled behind a concrete pillar, returning blind fire toward the catwalk. Bullets sparked against the metal railing just inches from my face. I threw myself flat against the rusted floor, covering my head.
“Oliver! Get down!” Luca roared.
The little boy threw himself off the chair, curling into a tight ball on the floor.
Marco, realizing his men were outmatched, didn't draw a weapon. Instead, he lunged toward Oliver, grabbing the boy by the collar of his sweater and yanking him to his feet, using him as a human shield.
“Drop the gun, Luca!” Marco screamed, pulling a heavy revolver from his coat and pressing the barrel directly against Oliver’s temple.
Luca froze. He stood slowly on the catwalk, his pistol still raised, but his finger off the trigger.
“Let him go, Marco,” Luca said, his voice deadly calm. “This is between you and me. He’s just a boy.”
“He’s Alessandro’s boy!” Marco spat, his eyes wild with panic. “He’s a ghost come back to haunt me! I built this family, Luca. Your father and brother were going to run it into the ground with their legitimate business deals. I saved us!”
“You murdered my brother,” Luca said, taking one slow step toward the stairs leading down to the floor.
“And I’ll murder his son if you don't drop the gun!” Marco screamed, pressing the barrel harder against Oliver’s head.
The boy whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Luca, please,” I gasped, terrified Marco’s shaking finger would pull the trigger by accident.
Luca looked at Oliver. He looked at Marco.
Then, Luca did the unthinkable.
He released his grip. His heavy black pistol clattered onto the metal catwalk and slid over the edge, falling twenty feet to the floor below.
He had disarmed himself.
Marco laughed, a manic, breathless sound. “You always were too sentimental, Luca. Just like your brother.”
Marco shifted his aim, pointing the revolver away from Oliver and directly at Luca’s chest.
“Goodbye, Boss.”
But Marco made one fatal mistake.
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When he moved the gun away from Oliver’s head, the boy opened his eyes. And Oliver remembered the single, broken object he still had in his pocket.
With his hands zip-tied together, Oliver reached into his sweater, pulled out the heavy silver pocket watch, and threw it with all his might directly into Marco’s face.
