Chapter 8 - NIGHT RUN
Glass rained down upon my back, the heavy fabric of my cashmere coat shielding the baby from the razor-sharp spray. The child screamed—a shrill, terrified wail muffled against my chest.
"Move! Now!" I barked.
Crane kicked open the maintenance door at the rear of the recovery suite—an access tunnel connecting the hospital’s HVAC network to the underground utility corridor.
I scooped Nina up in my right arm. She gasped in agonizing pain, her fresh abdominal incision screaming under the sudden movement, but she wrapped her arms around my neck with the fierce, desperate strength of a mother fighting for survival.
"I have you," I whispered against her hair. "I have both of you."
"Dorian... my baby..."
"He's right here. He's safe."
We scrambled through the narrow metal door into the darkness of the utility shafts just as a second sniper round pulverized the drywall where Nina’s head had rested seconds earlier.
The corridor was hot, smelling of steam, grease, and aging copper pipes. Red emergency halos guided our steps. Crane led the way with his tactical light, his shoulder soaked in blood, his face pale from shock, but moving with the stubborn determination of a soldier who refused to die on the job.
"Where does this lead?" Nina choked out, her head bouncing against my collarbone.
"Basement laundry dock," I said, my lungs burning under the weight of carrying my entire world through a concrete grave. "My driver has an armored Suburban idling in the loading bay. We make the car, we make the state line."
"And then what?" Nina’s dark eyes locked onto mine in the crimson shadows. "Felix won't stop, Dorian. He’ll hunt us to Canada. He’ll hunt us to the ends of the earth."
"No, he won't," I said, my voice hardening into iron. "Because tonight, I'm cutting the head off the snake."
We tumbled out of the service hatch into the cavernous concrete loading dock. The industrial air smelled of diesel exhaust and damp laundry sheets.
Thirty yards away, the matte-black Suburban sat idling, its heavy steel bumper pointed toward the exit ramp.
Suddenly, tires screeched on the ramp.
A black Cadillac Escalade roared down into the bay, blocking the exit. The passenger windows dropped, and two automatic submachine guns extended over the sills.
"Get down!" Crane shouted, shoving us behind a heavy steel laundry bin.
A hail of nine-millimeter rounds tore into the metal bins, sparks raining down like Fourth of July fireworks. The roar of gunfire was deafening inside the enclosed concrete cavern.
Crane returned fire with his remaining rounds, but he was outmatched, bleeding out, and running low on ammunition.
I pressed Nina and the child into the deepest recess of the steel bin.
"Stay here," I commanded.
"Dorian, don't leave us!" Nina cried, clutching at my lapel, her fingers covered in my sweat and her tears.
"I left you once, Nina," I said, leaning down and pressing my lips to her forehead, then to the crown of our screaming son's head. "I spent nine months regretting it. I'm not leaving you. I'm clearing the road."
I drew Vance’s dropped Glock from my waistband, took a breath, and broke cover.
I didn't fire at the shooters. I fired at the heavy industrial hydraulic cables suspending the overhead cargo door above the Escalade.
Three heavy caliber rounds severed the high-pressure steel lines.
The massive, four-ton industrial steel door dropped like a guillotine.
It crashed onto the hood of the Escalade with the force of an artillery shell, crushing the engine block, triggering the airbags, and pinning the vehicle to the concrete floor in a cloud of radiator steam and shrieking metal.
The surviving shooter scrambled out of the passenger window, disoriented.
I put two rounds in his chest before his boots touched the floor.
Silence slammed down on the loading dock, broken only by the hiss of steam and the cry of my son.
My armored Suburban swung around, the rear door flying open. My driver, Marcus, jumped out with an assault rifle raised.
"Boss! Get in! We have hostiles approaching from Michigan Avenue!"
I helped Crane into the passenger seat, lifted Nina into the leather interior, and climbed in beside her, pulling the heavy blast door shut.
The Suburban roared up the service ramp, busting through the wooden parking gate and rocketing into the Chicago rain.
Nina collapsed against my shoulder, sobbing, holding our son tightly against her breast. I wrapped my arm around both of them, my hand resting over the baby’s tiny, beating heart.
Then, Crane’s satellite phone buzzed on the console.
A video feed connected automatically to the dashboard screen.
The camera showed the interior of my private penthouse office above Vantage.
Sitting in my high-backed leather chair, sipping from my private vintage Scotch, was Felix Cavallo. On the desk in front of him rested a black military-grade radio detonator.
May you like
"Dorian," Felix spoke through the speakers, his voice smooth as silk. "You took something of mine tonight. So I decided to take something of yours. Come to Vantage within thirty minutes, boy. Or I turn your entire empire, and the fifty innocent people working inside it, into ash."
***
