Chapter 6 - THE WATER AND THE WEIGHT
The deafening roar of rushing water echoed through the subterranean tunnel.
The icy Chicago River violently blasted through the open iron grates, slamming into the brick walls and instantly flooding the floor. Within seconds, freezing water swirled around my ankles, rising fast.
“Melissa, move!” Adrian roared over the siren.
He didn't shoot Ryan. He holstered his weapon and grabbed my arm, hauling me toward the massive steel vault door Ryan had just opened.
Ryan was standing inside the vault, his white dinner jacket soaked, laughing like a madman as he tried to pull the heavy steel door shut from the inside to lock us out.
“You’re dead, Adrian!” Ryan screamed, his hands slipping on the wet metal wheel. “You’re both dead!”
Adrian didn't hesitate. He threw his entire body weight against the heavy vault door just before it clicked shut.
The sickening crunch of steel hitting bone echoed in the tunnel. Adrian grunted in pain as the heavy door slammed against his shoulder, but he held it open.
He shoved the door backward with brutal force, sending Ryan stumbling backward into the center of the vault.
Adrian grabbed my waist and practically threw me inside, stepping in right behind me.
The vault was massive, easily the size of a large living room. But unlike the tunnel, it wasn't empty. It was filled with rows of metal filing cabinets, medical equipment, and large, plastic-wrapped crates. It looked like an underground triage center combined with an archive room.
The water from the tunnel was already pouring over the threshold, flooding the vault floor.
“Help me shut it!” Adrian ordered, grabbing the heavy internal wheel.
I didn't think. I threw my weight against the wet steel, pushing with everything I had. The door groaned in protest against the rushing water, but slowly, agonizingly, it swung shut.
Adrian spun the wheel, locking the heavy deadbolts into place.
The immediate roar of the river was cut off, leaving only the sound of our ragged breathing and the water sloshing around our knees.
The vault was sealed. We were safe from the flood.
But we were locked inside a steel box deep beneath the city, and we weren't alone.
Ryan was standing on top of a metal desk in the center of the room, clutching the black briefcase containing the ten-million-dollar check. He looked like a cornered rat.
Adrian turned around, rubbing his bruised shoulder. His dark eyes locked onto Ryan.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Adrian spat, water dripping from his dark hair. “You just sealed your own tomb.”
“No,” Ryan panted, his chest heaving. “This vault has an emergency ventilation shaft that leads to street level. Aris built it in case the feds ever raided the clinic above us.”
“Where is it?” Adrian demanded, drawing his gun again.
“I’ll show you,” Ryan sneered, holding the briefcase tight to his chest. “If you let me walk out of here with the money. You try to shoot me, I throw the briefcase in the water, the ink runs, and you lose ten million dollars of your precious family trust.”
Adrian laughed. It was a cold, terrifying sound that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
“Do you really think I care about the money right now?” Adrian asked softly, taking a slow step forward into the knee-deep water. “You threatened my sister. You stole my father’s watch. You used this woman and her child as a human shield for sixteen years.”
Adrian raised the gun, aiming it directly at Ryan’s head.
“I’m going to kill you, Ryan. The only question is whether I shoot you, or drown you.”
Ryan’s arrogant facade completely shattered. He realized, finally, that Adrian Castellano could not be bought.
“Melissa!” Ryan screamed, looking frantically at me. “Melissa, tell him to stop! I’m your husband! I provided for you! I bought the house! I paid for Ellie’s braces!”
I stood in the freezing water, wearing the mafia boss’s heavy black coat. I looked at the man I had slept next to for sixteen years. The man I had cooked for, cleaned for, and loved with a naive, blind trust.
“You didn't pay for Ellie’s braces, Ryan,” I said, my voice dead calm. “I did. By working double shifts catering weddings on the weekends while you were 'in Milwaukee' planning your next fraud.”
I looked at Adrian.
“Shoot him.”
Ryan gasped, stumbling backward on the metal desk. “You’re crazy! Both of you!”
In his panic, Ryan lost his footing on the slick metal surface. He fell backward, crashing hard into a tall, heavy metal filing cabinet.
The cabinet swayed dangerously.
Ryan scrambled to catch his balance, grabbing the handle of the top drawer. The heavy metal drawer slid open violently, throwing the entire cabinet off balance.
With a deafening crash, the massive metal cabinet toppled over, landing directly on top of Ryan.
Ryan screamed in agony as the heavy steel pinned his legs to the flooded floor, trapping him under the water. The black briefcase flew from his hands, splashing into the murky water.
Adrian didn't rush to help him. He stood perfectly still, watching Ryan thrash wildly, his head barely above the rising waterline inside the vault.
“Adrian,” I whispered, stepping closer to him. “The water is still rising.”
Adrian frowned, looking down. I was right. The water level in the vault had gone from our knees to our thighs in less than a minute.
“The vault seal is compromised,” Adrian realized, looking back at the heavy door we had just closed. Water was spraying violently through a crack in the rubber gasket along the bottom edge.
The river pressure was too strong. The vault was slowly filling up.
“Help me!” Ryan shrieked, desperately trying to push the heavy filing cabinet off his legs. But it was too heavy, filled with decades of Dr. Aris’s medical files.
Adrian holstered his weapon. He waded over to the floating black briefcase, snatched it out of the water, and tossed it onto the top of the desk.
Then, he looked down at Ryan.
“The ventilation shaft,” Adrian said coldly. “Where is it?”
“Get this off me first!” Ryan sobbed, spitting dirty water.
“Tell me where the shaft is, or I leave you here to drown,” Adrian stated, his voice devoid of any mercy.
Ryan pointed a trembling, desperate finger toward the far corner of the vault, behind a stack of plastic-wrapped crates.
“Behind the crates!” Ryan choked out. “There’s a ladder! Now help me!”
Adrian looked at me. He didn't move toward Ryan.
“Go to the ladder,” Adrian told me.
I waded through the waist-deep, freezing water. My teeth were chattering violently. I pushed past the floating medical supplies and found the rusted iron ladder bolted to the concrete wall, leading up to a heavy metal grate in the ceiling.
“I found it!” I called out.
Adrian finally reached down, grabbing the edge of the heavy filing cabinet pinning Ryan. He strained, his muscles bulging under his soaked suit, and hoisted the metal cabinet up just enough for Ryan to yank his legs free.
Ryan scrambled up onto the desk, gasping for air, clutching his bruised legs.
“You’re a fool, Castellano,” Ryan sneered, coughing up water. “You should have let me drown.”
“I didn't save you for me,” Adrian said quietly.
Adrian grabbed Ryan by the collar of his ruined white dinner jacket and dragged him through the water toward the ladder.
Adrian shoved Ryan against the wall, forcing him to look at me.
“You’re going to climb that ladder,” Adrian told Ryan. “You are going to open the grate. And then you are going to climb out and disappear. Because if I ever see your face in this city again, I won't just kill you. I will erase every record that you ever existed.”
Ryan didn't argue. He scrambled up the iron ladder like a terrified animal, pushing the heavy grate open and disappearing into the darkness of the shaft above.
I stared at Adrian, completely stunned.
“You let him go?” I asked, shivering violently in the rising water. “He tried to steal ten million dollars! He tried to kill us!”
Adrian stepped closer to me in the freezing water. He reached out and gently pulled the lapels of his heavy black coat tighter around my neck, shielding me from the cold.
“I let him go,” Adrian said softly, his dark eyes locking onto mine, “because I promised your daughter I wouldn't leave her an orphan tonight. Even if her father is a monster.”
The sheer, profound decency of the mafia boss broke the last of my defenses. A sob tore from my throat, and I buried my face in his wet chest.
Adrian didn't pull away. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight in the freezing, flooded vault.
But as the water rose to our chests, something bumped against my hip in the murky water.
I reached down and pulled it up.
It was a thick, plastic-wrapped medical file that had spilled out of the tipped cabinet.
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Printed clearly on the front of the file, in thick black marker, was my name:
Melissa Mitchell - Patient Zero.
