Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The SUV’s engine hummed low, the only pulse in the tight silence.
From the tree line overlooking the airfield, Tonio raised the binoculars, the runway sharpening into cold greens and grays.
The only color that tried to bleed through was the bright, ridiculous yellow of a sunhat—there and gone the second he forced it out of his mind.
Force daylight on him.
Sofia had built the bones of this whole thing. She’d read the man behind the title—knew a cornered rat like Senator Young wouldn’t run silent. He’d want a stage. Take away the shadows, force him into the open, and he’d mistake the trap for his own spotlight.
“Feds are two minutes out,” Luc’s voice came through the comm line, calm as always. “Press is at the front gate. Our reporter’s wired and waiting.”
“Copy,” Tonio said, his voice rough. He felt for the gun at his waist—habit, not nerves. The weight steadied him, but not as much as remembering her in the ops room, slicing through their blind spots like she’d been born to it.
“The mark’s rolling up,” Carlos warned through the comms. “Two cars. Eight made guys, easy. Checking shadows, rooftops… looking for a real crew.”
Tonio’s eyes narrowed behind the binoculars. All that muscle scanning shadows for a hit squad that wasn’t there. They had no clue where the real knife was coming from.
He saw the whole act clear as day. Young wasn’t afraid of dying. He was afraid of being forgotten. The hired guns were nothing but props in the little drama he’d scripted for himself. The bastard still believed he was the star.
What a joke.
The hangar door groaned open. The jet gleamed inside, bought with money he never should’ve touched. Then Young stepped out—face already set in that fake, injured act he used on cameras and idiots.
Then the first news van, followed by two unmarked sedans with flashing lights hidden behind their grilles, screeched onto the tarmac.
The change in Young was instantaneous. His practiced pose shattered into raw panic. He spun, looking for an escape. This was not the script.
“Federal agents! On the ground, now!” The bullhorn cracked across the runway.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tonio caught two of Young’s guys reaching for their guns. Stupid move. These weren’t beat cops they could muscle. These were feds—and feds didn’t bluff.
One of Young’s guards ripped his M4 up. Two FBI rounds answered instantly. The guard dropped. Then every guard opened fire.
Cameras kept rolling from behind the relative safety of their van doors sixty yards back, the reporters screaming into mics about “active shooter” and “possible terrorist attack.”
Through the chaos, Tonio caught the shift. While most of Young’s men kept the FBI pinned down with wild fire, two of his smarter men split off, muscling the senator toward the south perimeter—a classic extraction, using the gunfight as a smokescreen.
“Young’s breaking for the south perimeter! Two guards with him!” Carlos reported, his voice tight. “They’re using the firefight as a screen.”
“Carlos, keep the Bureau’s eyes on the main stage. Luc, hold high ground. I’m taking the principal,” Tonio said, his tone all business.
“Copy,” Carlos answered, steady. “I’ll make sure the feds stay locked on the front.”
He was out of the SUV and moving, a shadow flitting through the trees parallel to the airfield fence. He scaled the eight-foot fence in two fluid motions, dropping to the tarmac on the other side. He ignored the main battle, his focus entirely on the fleeing figures.
The two guards with Young slid forward in a rehearsed rotation. The one covering saw Tonio. He raised his rifle.
Tonio didn’t break stride. Two shots, swallowed by the gunfire around them. The first round took the guard in the shoulder, spinning him. The second caught him in the throat. He went down without a sound.
The second guard, hearing his partner fall, scanned the perimeter in a panic. His eyes locked on the only cover in sight—a large, circular storm drain, its rusted grate slightly ajar. He shoved the senator violently toward the dark opening. “Move!”
Young stumbled forward, not toward a plan, but toward the only shadow that promised to hide him.
Tonio hit the deck, concrete chips stinging his face. He rolled behind a stack of weathered cargo pallets. The wood splintered under the onslaught. He counted the shots, the pattern of the weapon. A long burst. The guard was panicking, trying to spray and pray.
The firing stopped. The distinct click of a magazine release was all the invitation Tonio needed. He rose, and with one shot straight to the chest, the guard dropped.
He was up and running again, his breath even, his world narrowed to the dark opening of the storm drain. He could hear Young’s frantic, scrambling footsteps echoing from within, the clatter of him stumbling in the dark.
Tonio paused at the entrance. He took a breath and plunged inside.
The world went from chaotic daylight to confined, echoing blackness.
The air was thick with the smell of damp concrete, rust, and stagnant water.
His light cut a narrow beam through the gloom, illuminating a large, circular tunnel about eight feet in diameter.
A shallow stream of runoff trickled down the center.
The sound of panicked flight was ahead, amplified by the tunnel’s acoustics. Then, a gunshot.
The report was deafening in the enclosed space. The round ricocheted off the wall near Tonio’s head with a high-pitched whine. He dropped into a crouch, switching off his light. Darkness, absolute and suffocating, swallowed them whole.
“I know who you are… Valachi’s dog.”
Young’s voice cracked, tight with fear. “I can pay… anything. Name your price.”
Tonio stared down at him. The man’s eyes were wide, raw.
Another shot. This one was wild, aimed at nothing. The flash illuminated the tunnel for a split second. Tonio saw him. Young was backed into a slight alcove, a maintenance niche, his face a mask of sheer terror, his expensive suit filthy and torn.
The flash also showed Tonio the way. A metal walkway, a narrow ledge along the curved wall.
He holstered his pistol, the movement silent. Using the rough concrete for purchase, he pulled himself onto the ledge. He became a specter, moving above the water, invisible and unheard.
Tonio was directly above him now. He could smell the man’s fear-sweat, hear the frantic click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber. Click. Click. Click. “I can pay… anything. Name your price.”
He dropped from the ledge, pistol already back in hand.
Tonio’s arm shot out, a viper strike. He caught Young’s wrist, twisting it with a brutal, precise motion.
The bone snapped with a dry, sickening crunch.
Young screamed, a high, pathetic sound that was cut short as Tonio slammed him back against the concrete wall, pinning him there.
For a long moment, they were frozen. The hunter and the prey, in the bowels of the earth. The only light was the faint glow from the tunnel entrance far behind them, casting them in silhouette.
Tonio looked into the eyes of the man who had ordered hits, who had destroyed lives, who had threatened the one good thing in his own fractured life. He saw no grand villain, no worthy adversary. Just a pathetic, broken man.
This wasn’t about justice for the world. That was happening back on the tarmac, with the FBI and the cameras. This was personal. This was for Sofia. This was to ensure this worm could never, ever threaten her again.
He raised his pistol.
Young’s good hand, hidden in the folds of his jacket, flashed upward. A derringer, a tiny, last-ditch weapon. A final, desperate trick.
There was no time to dodge. The roar of the small gun was immense in the tunnel.
Tonio fired a single shot.
It was perfectly placed. A neat, dark hole appeared in the center of Senator Young’s forehead. His body went slack, a puppet with its strings cut, and slid down the wall into the trickling water.
A fraction of a second later, Tonio felt the impact. Young’s wild, dying shot had hit him. The round, fired upward at an angle, had skipped off the concrete ceiling and slammed into his side, digging a furrow just below the edge of his ceramic plate armor.
It felt like being hit with a sledgehammer.
The breath exploded from his lungs. The tunnel tilted hard; his knees almost buckled before training locked them again.
A white-hot lance of pain seared through his torso.
He grunted, stumbling back a step, his hand instinctively clamping over the wound. It came away warm and slick with blood.
Not good.
He looked down at Young’s body, the sight already blurring at the edges. The job was done. Permanently.
“It’s finished. He’s gone. Took one in the side. South storm drain. Come pull me out before I bleed out in this shithole,” he rasped into the comm.
Luc’s voice cracked back instantly. “Copy—two minutes, fratello. Stay with us.”
Tonio slumped against the wall, sliding down to sit in the filthy water, facing his kill.
The pain was a living thing, gnawing at his insides.
He fumbled in a pouch on his vest, pulling out a compressed gauze bandage.
He shoved it hard against the wound, hissing through his teeth as fresh agony bloomed.
The image of her face, the one he’d clung to as a compass needle, flashed before him.
The cold from the concrete and the water began to seep into his bones, a deeper chill than the blood loss.
The hollow silence he carried was no longer hollow; it was filled with the echoing, final shot and the crushing fear that in securing her future, he had just obliterated his own chance to be in it.
He closed his eyes, not against the pain, but against the image of her. It was too pure for this place. Too bright for the darkness that was claiming him.
The sound of hurried footsteps splashing through the water echoed down the tunnel. A beam of light found him.