Chapter 8
Fabio
The red light blinks. A single, rhythmic pulse against the rusted iron of the tunnel table.
The tunnel goes dead quiet. So quiet I hear my own pulse hammer in my ears. The iron door at the end of the tunnel groans. Hinges screaming against decades of rust. Boots hit the iron grating outside. One pair. Two. More.
They found her. Her own blood planted a tracker in the lining of her bag and sent a strike team to slaughter her in the dark.
Rage detonates in my chest. White-hot. Logic burns off in a heartbeat. I'm not a man standing in a subterranean Prohibition tunnel. I'm a predator. Forged in a twenty-year war. The only thing that matters in this godforsaken world is the woman standing two feet from me.
She's mine. They're coming for what's mine.
Fuck.
My boot comes down on the Bellanti-issue micro-tracker. Plastic splinters. Circuitry crunches into dead fragments beneath my sole. The blinking red light dies.
Catalina stands frozen by the table. Ripe figs and dark honey spike the freezing air. She looks like she expects to die here. Her Aunt Maria died for running. Her face says she thinks this is the end of the line.
She is wrong. I'll paint these brick walls with Bellanti blood before a single one of them breathes her air.
My hand wraps around her bicep. The grip is iron. I yank her flush against my chest. Her body slams into my tactical vest. Heat sears through the layers of our clothing. She's small against my frame. A delicate thing I'm going to keep behind a wall of my own violence. Forever.
"Get behind the boiler." My voice is a low, guttural growl. It echoes off the slick, algae-covered bricks. “Don't move. Don't speak. You stay in the dark until I come for you."
She grips my forearms. Her fingers dig into the heavy muscle of my arms. She doesn't argue. She doesn't reach for the sharp tongue she uses as armor. She just nods once. Terrifying trust.
I shove her gently behind the massive, rusted iron boiler tank anchored to the far wall. The shadows swallow her.
The outer door hinges shriek. The heavy thud of a breaching ram echoes through the corridor. They're breaking the deadbolt.
My hand drops to my thigh holster. The cold, familiar weight of my customized Sig Sauer fills my palm. I rack the slide. The metallic clack is deafening in the tight space. I reach up and smash the glass bulb of the single overhead light with the butt of the gun.
Total blackness descends.
The speakeasy drops into black. The damp chill of the subterranean air crawls over my skin. The oily bite of my gear cuts through the musty odor of river water and ancient dirt.
The deadbolt snaps. The iron door crashes open and slams against the stone wall.
"Spread out. Find the bitch. Put a bullet in her head and grab the bag."
The command is barked in a thick, flat-vowel Chicago accent. Bellanti muscle. Disposable thugs sent to do the dirty work of a coward family.
Four sets of heavy boots cross the threshold. Tactical flashlights cut through the darkness. Crisp white beams cut across the brick walls, catching the river mist hanging in the freezing air.
They're hunting my woman.
Mine.
Something inside me snaps its leash. Dominic kept me leashed for twenty years.
Kept his volatile little brother out of the worst of the meat grinder.
I hated him for it. I raged against that cage.
The grief I swallowed as a kid never got cried out.
It crystallized. It turned into hot, restless violence with nowhere to land.
Now, I understand the cage. I understand the need to lock the world away from the thing you cherish. I'm going to build a fortress around Catalina Bellanti. I'm going to become the wall.
I slide silently along the slick brick wall. The dark swallows my tactical gear. The first flashlight beam sweeps past my boots.
I step into the light.
The lead thug jerks his weapon toward me. He never gets the chance to pull the trigger.
My left hand clamps over his face. The leather of my tactical gloves bites into his jaw.
I drive him backward with every pound of weight I have.
His skull cracks against the solid stone wall with a sickening, wet crunch.
His body goes limp. The flashlight drops from his hand and spins across the stone floor, throwing wild light up the bricks.
"Contact!" one of them screams.
Gunfire erupts. Concussive blasts rip through the tight tunnel. Muzzle flashes strobe in the dark, white and yellow. Chunks of ancient brick explode around my head. Shrapnel rains down on my shoulders.
I don't flinch. I don't take cover.
I raise the Sig and fire twice. Center mass. Both rounds hit. The thug drops like a stone, clutching his chest. His blood sprays across the rusted iron of the boiler tank. Blood-iron floods the air. It buries the river underneath.
Two left.
They panic. The raw, primal brutality of the counter-attack shatters their tactical discipline. They expected a terrified, unarmed woman cowering in the dark. They got the wrong man.
One of them sprays bullets toward the boiler on instinct, hunting for the woman.
The world stops spinning. Time dilates. A bullet strikes the rusted iron tank where Catalina is hiding. The sharp, high-pitched ping echoes in my skull.
The rage goes cold. Surgical.
I cross the distance in three strides. I do not shoot the man who fired at the boiler. Bullets are too quick. Bullets won't carry what I owe him.
I tackle him to the floor. My weight crushes the air from his lungs.
His gun skitters away into the darkness.
I grip the collar of his tactical vest and haul him halfway up.
My right fist comes down like a hammer. Bone shatters under my knuckles.
Cartilage collapses. I hit him again. And again.
The wet, heavy sound of destruction is the only noise left in the speakeasy.
The final man scrambles backward. His boots slip on the slick, bloody stone. He's terrified. Breathing in ragged, panicked gasps.
"Wait. Costa. Wait—"
I rise to my feet. My chest heaves. My hands are coated in warm, sticky Bellanti blood.
I point the Sig at the space between his eyes.
"You brought a tracker into my house." My voice is dead. Hollow. A promise of hell.
I pull the trigger.
The gunshot rings out with finality. The man collapses in a heap. The flashlight on the ground illuminates the pooling blood. Thick, dark crimson creeping across the grey stone.
The tunnel goes quiet. Just the ringing in my ears.
The scent of gunpowder is suffocating. Spent rounds and blood. It mixes with the dampness of the subterranean river. The mix sits thick at the back of my throat.
I stand in the center of the carnage. Four bodies. Four threats eliminated. The rage demands more. It demands I march across the city to the South Side and burn the entire Bellanti compound to ash tonight. It demands this war be ended right here, right now.
"Fabio."
A soft, trembling voice cuts through the bloodlust.
I turn instantly.
Catalina steps out from behind the rusted boiler. The dim, erratic light from the dropped flashlight catches the edges of her face. She is pale. Her eyes are huge, staring at the bodies scattered across the floor. She clutches her arms across her chest.
Her scent hits me. Sweet under all the cordite. That sweet scent slices straight through the metallic stench of the slaughterhouse.
I cross the room. I don't care about the blood on my gloves. I grip her shoulders. My thumbs settle against her collarbones. I inspect every inch of her face and scan her body for a single drop of blood that doesn't belong to the men on the floor.
"Are you hit?" The words are rough. Barked.
She shakes her head. Her hands come up to grip my tactical vest. She holds onto me like an anchor in a hurricane.
"No. I'm okay. I'm okay."
Relief crashes over me. It's a staggering wave. It feels like rage. The two emotions are indistinguishable inside my chest. I want to scream. I want to crush her against me until our bones fuse.
I yank her flush against my body. I bury my face in the curve of her neck. I drag her scent into my lungs. Greedy. She is alive. She is unharmed. She is mine.
Mine. Fuck.
Her arms wrap around my waist. She buries her face against my chest, right over my thundering heartbeat. She doesn't push away from the blood. She doesn't flinch from the man who made it. She holds on like she accepts the violence. Like she knows it was for her.
We stand in the dark, surrounded by the dead, holding each other in the center of the wreckage.
The silence is broken by the distant sound of sirens bleeding through the grates above. The Chicago Police. Or more Bellanti reinforcements. We can't stay here. The speakeasy is compromised. The sanctuary is burned.
I pull back. I keep one hand locked around the back of her neck. I can't make my hand let go. If I let go of her, I'll tear the tunnel apart with my bare hands.
"We have to move." I stare down into her eyes. "This location is burned. They will send more."
"Where do we go?" Her voice is steady. The Bellanti defector is finding her footing. The tactical mind inside that beautiful, curvy body is waking up. "The streets are a kill zone. If they tracked me here, they have shooters covering the exits."
She's right. Going back up through the iron gate is a death sentence.
I turn my head toward the far end of the tunnel.
The shadows are thickest there. The rusted iron wheel I clocked the first time I walked these tunnels sits flush against the damp brick.
The flood pipe. Decommissioned in the 1970s.
It leads directly to the river drainage system and dumps out half a mile down the riverwalk.
It's flooded. It's freezing. It's the only way out.
"The drainage pipe." I point into the tunnel. "It connects to the river. We go under them."
Catalina looks at the rusted wheel. She looks at her leather bag on the table. She doesn't hesitate.
"Okay."