Chapter 7 - Ambush at the Crossing
The impact sounded like a bomb going off.
Metal sheared against metal as a massive commercial flatbed truck slammed into the passenger side of our Suburban, spinning us across the rain-soaked asphalt of 47th Street. Glass shattered into thousands of diamonds, showering the interior.
The SUV slammed sideways into a concrete bridge abutment and ground to a violent halt.
Smoke poured from the shredded hood. My ears rang with a deafening screech. Blood dripped down the side of my forehead, stinging my left eye.
“Isabella!”
Alessandro’s voice sounded muffled, as if underwater. He kicked his crumpled door open, crawling across the buckled interior to reach me. His face was bleeding from a deep laceration above his temple, but his grip on my arm was ironclad.
“Can you move?” he shouted over the hiss of escaping steam.
“I think so,” I groaned, coughing against the acrid smoke.
He hauled me out through the broken window frame just as headlights flooded the street behind us. Two black sedans skidded to a halt at the mouth of the underpass. Heavily armed men in dark raincoats poured out, assault rifles raised.
“Move! Into the rail corridor!” Alessandro shoved me through a gap in the chain-link fence bordering the abandoned freight yard.
Gunfire erupted behind us. Bullets tore through the chain-link, ricocheting off the rusty hulls of decommissioned boxcars.
Alessandro returned fire with terrifying precision, dropping two pursuers before grabbing my hand and dragging me between two towering rows of rusted freight trains. The maze of iron and gravel sheltered us from the immediate crossfire, but the heavy boots of Varga’s hit squad were splashing through the mud close behind.
“Where is Vincent?” I gasped, clutching my side as we sprinted along the tracks.
Alessandro checked his tactical watch. “The collision knocked out our transponders. He’s inbound, but we’re five minutes without backup. We have to reach Warehouse Four before Varga realizes the ambushing team failed.”
We rounded the corner of an abandoned grain elevator. Ahead, looming out of the Chicago fog, stood Warehouse Four—a decaying brick cathedral of rust, broken windows, and sagging corrugated metal.
A single incandescent light bulb swayed above the entrance.
“The drive,” I whispered, panic rising in my chest. “Do you still have it?”
Alessandro tapped his breast pocket. “It’s here.”
He pulled me into the deep shadow of an overturned hopper car. He took my face in both of his hands, his thumbs wiping away the blood and rain on my skin. His dark eyes were burning with a desperate, fierce resolve.
“Listen to me carefully,” he whispered. “You walk through that front door alone. You show Varga the drive. Keep him talking. Draw him toward the center of the loading floor, away from the support columns.”
“And you?”
“I’m taking the catwalks through the roof ventilation,” he said. “The moment I have a clean line of sight on Varga, I take the shot. You grab Marco and get behind the concrete pillar to the left. Do you understand?”
My hands shook, but I nodded. “Don't let him kill my brother, Alessandro.”
“I won't let him touch either of you,” he promised.
He slipped into the shadows, disappearing up the rusted exterior ladder toward the roof with silent, lethal grace.
I stood alone in the freezing rain.
I looked down at the .38 revolver hidden inside the pocket of my ruined evening coat. I took a deep breath, stepped into the pool of yellow light, and pushed open the heavy wooden door of Warehouse Four.
The rusted hinges groaned loudly.
Inside, the vast warehouse smelled of damp earth, diesel, and copper.
Tied to a heavy wooden chair beneath a dangling industrial work light in the center of the concrete floor was Marco.
His head hung low, his clothes torn, his skin gray and hollow. Beside him stood Dante Varga, holding a silver medical syringe filled with clear liquid, surrounded by four armed bodyguards.
“Marco!” I screamed, taking a frantic step forward.
Marco’s head snapped up. His bruised, swollen eyes widened in sheer terror.
“Bella?” he croaked, coughing violently. “No... Bella, run! It’s a trap!”
Varga smiled, a cold, reptilian grin, tapping the syringe against his knuckle.
May you like
“Welcome to the family reunion, Isabella,” Varga purred. “I see you survived my welcome wagon. Now... put the drive on the table, or I empty this syringe into your brother's neck right now.”
***
