Chapter 7 - The Button On The Detonator
Click.
The sound of the button pressing echoed loudly in the cavernous mill, cutting through the low hum of the blast furnace.
I screamed, throwing my arms over my head and bracing for the thunderous roar of explosives. I waited for the walls to collapse, for the fire to consume us, for the ceiling to crash down and bury my husband in his cage.
But nothing happened.
No explosion. No fire.
Just the absolute, deafening silence of the abandoned factory.
Isabella stared at the black remote in her hand, her manic smile faltering. She pressed the button again. Frantically. Click. Click. Click.
“What is this?” Isabella hissed, her eyes darting around the shadows. “Why isn’t it detonating?”
A deep, mocking chuckle echoed from the catwalk directly above her.
“Because you hired cheap muscle, Isabella.”
We all looked up.
Stepping out of the shadows on the high catwalk, holding a severed bundle of red and blue wires, was Marcus.
The treacherous neighbor we had left bleeding in the railyard.
I stared in shock. Adrian’s men had tied him up. How did he escape? And why was he here?
Marcus limped slightly, his pant leg stained with blood, but his eyes were sharp and calculating behind his cracked glasses.
“Did you really think I was loyal to you, little girl?” Marcus sneered, tossing the severed wires down. They landed with a thud on the metal platform at Isabella’s feet. “I work for Carlo. And when Carlo realized you were sleeping with the rival Syndicate, he sent me here ahead of time to disarm your little fireworks show.”
Isabella’s face contorted with rage. “You’re a dead man, Marcus!”
“No,” Marcus replied calmly. “I’m a survivor.”
He looked down at Adrian.
“Adrian,” Marcus called out, leaning over the rusted railing. “Carlo offers a truce. We both know Isabella is the real threat now. If her Syndicate lover takes over, the Moretti family is finished. Let me lower the cage. You take your driver, you take the girl, and you let Carlo walk free tomorrow.”
Adrian kept his gun aimed squarely at Isabella, but his eyes flicked upward toward Marcus.
“You think you have leverage because you cut a few wires?” Adrian asked coldly.
“I have leverage because I have the control box for the crane,” Marcus smiled, patting a heavy metal switchboard bolted to the catwalk railing. “I control the chain holding Daniel. I can lower him safely, or I can drop him into the furnace right now.”
My heart stopped.
I looked at the cage dangling twenty feet above the glowing, molten pit. Daniel was slumped against the bars, weak and motionless.
“Don’t you touch him!” I screamed, stepping out from behind Adrian, raising the small pistol he had given me. My hands were shaking so violently I could barely keep it straight.
Marcus laughed. “Put the toy away, Nora. You don’t have the stomach for this.”
Isabella, realizing her explosives were useless, suddenly raised her heavy revolver and aimed it directly at the cage.
“If I can’t blow the building, I’ll just kill the bait!” Isabella screamed.
“No!” Adrian roared.
Isabella pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was deafening.
But the bullet didn’t hit the cage.
A split second before she fired, Marcus slammed his hand against the crane’s control lever. The massive gears ground together, and the chain violently jerked downward.
The cage dropped five feet in a free-fall, swinging wildly over the furnace.
Isabella’s bullet sparked harmlessly against the thick steel chain overhead.
The sudden drop jolted Daniel awake. He gripped the bars of the cage, coughing weakly as the intense heat from the pit rose around him.
“Daniel!” I cried, tears blinding me.
Daniel looked down through the bars. His face was covered in soot, his eyes hollow and exhausted, but when he saw me standing there, a spark of life ignited in him.
“Nora?” his voice cracked, raw and raspy. “Get out! It’s a trap!”
Isabella turned her gun toward Adrian, but Adrian was already moving. He fired twice.
The first bullet struck Isabella’s shoulder, spinning her violently. The second shattered the metal railing next to her head. She shrieked, dropping her revolver and collapsing onto the grated platform.
Adrian didn’t stop. He sprinted toward the metal staircase leading up to the platform, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Drop him!” Isabella screamed at Marcus from the floor, clutching her bleeding shoulder. “Drop him into the fire!”
Marcus hesitated. He looked at Adrian rushing up the stairs, then at his own bleeding leg. He knew he couldn’t outrun the mafia boss.
“Sorry, Carlo,” Marcus muttered.
He yanked the crane lever all the way down.
The gears shrieked. The chain snapped taught, and the cage plummeted toward the glowing orange pit.
“NO!” I screamed, dropping the gun and sprinting toward the furnace.
At the very last second, the chain caught violently on the emergency brake. The cage stopped with a bone-jarring crash, dangling a mere five feet above the open flames.
The heat radiating from the pit was unbearable. Daniel coughed violently, his clothes beginning to smoke from the extreme temperature.
Marcus turned to run down the opposite catwalk, abandoning the controls.
Adrian reached the platform, leaping over Isabella’s bleeding body, and sprinted toward the crane controls. But the ancient, rusted emergency brake was groaning. The metal teeth were slipping under the immense weight of the cage.
Clank. Clank.
The cage dropped another six inches.
“Adrian, it’s breaking!” I sobbed, standing helplessly at the edge of the pit, the heat blistering my skin.
“I’ve got it!” Adrian yelled, grabbing the heavy manual override lever. He strained with all his might, the muscles in his arms bulging as he fought to pull the heavy cage away from the flames.
Slowly, agonizingly, the crane swung the cage away from the pit, hovering over the solid concrete floor where I stood.
“Lower it!” I cried.
Adrian yanked the release. The cage slammed onto the concrete.
I threw myself at the metal bars. “Daniel! Oh my god, Daniel!”
Daniel reached through the bars, his hands blistered and shaking, and grabbed my face.
“You’re here,” he wept, tears cutting clean lines through the soot on his cheeks. “You’re really here.”
“I’ve got the key,” I cried, fumbling in my pocket for the silver key I had found behind the photo. I jammed it into the heavy padlock on the cage door.
It didn’t turn.
I twisted harder. Nothing.
“It’s not turning!” I panicked, shaking the lock.
Daniel looked closely at the keyhole. “Nora, this isn’t a standard lock. It’s a dual-pin tumbler. The key only unlocks the outer shell. You need a numeric code for the inner bolt.”
He pointed to a small digital keypad built into the side of the padlock.
“Carlo never told me the code,” Daniel coughed, the smoke inhalation taking its toll.
I stared at the keypad, my mind going blank with terror.
Above us, Isabella suddenly let out a blood-curdling scream.
She had crawled across the platform, grabbed her fallen revolver with her good hand, and aimed it directly down at my back as I knelt by the cage.
“If I can’t burn him, I’ll shoot you both!” Isabella shrieked.
Before Adrian could reach her, a small, clear voice echoed from the shadows near the entrance of the mill.
“Three! Two!”
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Isabella froze. I turned around.
Standing ten feet away, holding my dropped pistol in his tiny, trembling hands, was Ben.
