Chapter 6 - The Price of a Life
The cavernous sanctuary of St. Jude’s plunged into a terrifying, breathless silence, broken only by the crackle of prayer candles.
Victor stood at the altar, his assault rifle leveled squarely at Father Thomas’s head. The elderly priest trembled, clutching a silver crucifix to his chest, but he didn't beg for his life.
“Let him go, Victor,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a low, lethal rumble that echoed off the vaulted stone ceiling. He didn't raise his shotgun, calculating the distance and the six cartel mercenaries flanking his former friend.
“I don't care about the priest, Boss,” Victor smiled, a cold, empty expression. “Hand over the maid. The cartel needs the coordinates on her wrist to access the offshore accounts. You give us the girl, and you can walk out of here with your life.”
“I’d rather die,” I blurted out, stepping closer to Luca, my hands resting protectively over my unborn child.
Victor laughed, a harsh, grating sound.
“That can be arranged, Anna,” Victor mocked. “But it’s a shame. Michael begged for your life before the car burned. He was very convincing.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. The image of Michael, trapped and burning, begging this monster for my safety, tore a jagged sob from my throat.
Luca’s jaw clenched so tightly I thought his teeth might shatter.
“You’re a dead man, Victor,” Luca promised softly.
“I’m a wealthy man,” Victor corrected. He glanced at Vanessa, who was kneeling on the floor beside us, her hands still zip-tied behind her back.
“You disappointed me, Vanessa,” Victor sneered. “You were supposed to deliver the girl to me quietly. Instead, you let the Don drag you here like a stray dog.”
Vanessa looked up, her eyes wide with desperate panic. “Victor, please! Tell them I’m with you! I can still help the cartel!”
“The cartel doesn't need a bankrupt socialite,” Victor dismissed coldly.
He raised his rifle slightly, adjusting his aim from the priest directly to Vanessa.
“Wait!” Vanessa screamed.
BANG.
The gunshot deafened the cathedral.
Vanessa crumpled to the stone floor, a dark red stain spreading across her chest. She gasped once, her eyes wide with shock, before going completely still.
I screamed, covering my ears, terrified by the sudden, casual execution.
Luca didn't flinch. He used the split-second distraction of the gunshot.
He shoved me hard behind a massive marble pillar, simultaneously raising his shotgun and firing a devastating blast toward the altar.
The spray of buckshot took down two of the cartel mercenaries instantly.
“Covering fire!” Victor roared, diving behind the heavy wooden pulpit as his remaining men opened fire.
The sanctuary erupted into a warzone. Bullets shattered the ancient stained-glass windows, raining colorful shards of glass down upon the pews. Wood splintered and stone cracked as Luca returned fire with terrifying, calculated precision.
“Father, get down!” I screamed to the priest.
Father Thomas scrambled across the floor, sliding behind the marble pillar next to me, clutching his chest in terror.
“The crypt!” Father Thomas yelled over the deafening roar of gunfire. “Michael hid the box in the catacombs beneath the church! There’s a secret entrance behind the baptismal font!”
I looked at Luca. He had just exhausted his shotgun shells and dropped the weapon, drawing his heavy Glock pistol.
“Luca! The crypt!” I shouted, pointing toward the back of the church.
Luca fired three rapid shots, dropping another mercenary, creating a momentary lull in the cartel’s barrage.
“Go!” Luca roared, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet.
We sprinted down the side aisle, using the thick stone pillars for cover. Father Thomas led the way, surprisingly fast for his age. We reached the ornate marble baptismal font near the rear exit.
The priest pressed a sequence of hidden levers beneath the marble basin.
With a heavy, grinding groan, a section of the stone floor slid backward, revealing a narrow, pitch-black stone staircase leading down into the earth.
“Hurry!” Father Thomas urged, ushering me down the stairs.
Luca covered our retreat, firing blindly toward the altar to keep Victor’s men pinned. Once I was safely on the stairs, Luca slipped in behind us, pulling a heavy iron lever that slammed the stone floor shut above us, sealing us in darkness.
The muffled sound of gunfire above us instantly vanished, replaced by the eerie, damp silence of the catacombs.
Luca clicked on his small UV flashlight, the purple beam illuminating the ancient, arched brick tunnels lined with dusty tombs.
“Are you hurt?” Luca asked immediately, his hand gently touching my shoulder in the dark.
“I’m okay,” I breathed, adrenaline masking the exhaustion in my pregnant body. “Is Father Thomas okay?”
“I am fine, child,” the priest coughed, dusting off his robes. “Follow me. We don't have much time. They will find the mechanism to open the floor.”
We hurried down the winding tunnels. The air grew colder, smelling of earth and old incense.
“Father,” Luca asked as we walked, his voice tight. “What exactly did my brother hide down here?”
“Proof,” Father Thomas replied simply.
We reached a small, reinforced iron door at the end of the tunnel. The priest pulled a heavy, rusted key from his robes and unlocked it, pushing the creaking door open.
Inside was a small, dusty storage room filled with old church records.
Sitting in the center of a wooden table was a sleek, modern, waterproof lockbox.
I rushed forward.
“It requires a dual authentication,” Father Thomas explained, pointing to a small digital keypad and a biometric thumb scanner. “Michael programmed it himself.”
I looked at my wrist, holding it under Luca’s UV light. The glowing coordinates were clear.
“The password is the coordinates,” Luca realized, typing the long string of numbers into the keypad.
A green light flashed, but the box didn't open.
“Awaiting biometric scan,” a small robotic voice announced from the box.
Luca frowned, pressing his own thumb to the scanner.
“Access Denied.”
“It’s calibrated to Michael’s thumbprint,” Luca panicked, running a hand through his hair. “He’s dead. We can’t open it.”
I stared at the box, a memory flashing through my mind.
The night Michael proposed to me. He had pricked his finger on a thorn from a rose he gave me, laughing about how he was bleeding for my love. He had wiped the blood on a small, white handkerchief and joked that he was giving me his DNA.
I still carried that handkerchief in the pocket of my apron. I never washed it. It was my only piece of him.
“Wait,” I whispered, frantically digging into my apron pocket.
I pulled out the folded, stained cloth. The dried drop of blood was still there.
“Luca,” I said, my hands shaking. “Can a biometric scanner read dried DNA?”
Luca’s eyes widened. He grabbed the handkerchief, his mind working with terrifying speed.
“It’s not an optical scanner, it’s a capacitive sensor,” Luca muttered, pulling a small bottle of hand sanitizer from his pocket. “It needs moisture and conductivity to read the ridges of the print left in the dried blood.”
He squeezed a single drop of alcohol-based gel onto the dried bloodstain, carefully pressing the damp cloth against the glass scanner.
For three agonizing seconds, the machine whirred in silence.
“Access Granted.”
The heavy lockbox clicked open.
I let out a sob of pure relief.
Luca opened the lid.
Inside wasn't a stack of cash. It wasn't gold.
It was a single, black USB flash drive. And resting beside it was a heavy, gold signet ring with the crest of the Reyes Cartel.
Luca stared at the ring, all the color draining from his face.
“This is the ring of El Jefe,” Luca breathed, terrified. “The head of the Reyes Cartel.”
“Michael stole it from him?” I asked, confused.
“He didn't steal it,” Father Thomas said quietly, stepping closer to the table. “He recovered it from a crime scene.”
The priest looked at Luca with deep, agonizing sorrow.
“Luca,” Father Thomas whispered. “Vanessa wasn't just laundering money for the cartel. She was helping them cover up a murder.”
“Whose murder?” Luca demanded, his voice cracking.
Father Thomas pointed to the flash drive.
“Five years ago, the former Don of Chicago was assassinated in his bed,” Father Thomas revealed. “Everyone believed it was a heart attack.”
I gasped.
The former Don. Luca and Michael’s father.
“Vanessa let the cartel boss into your father’s bedroom,” Father Thomas said, the truth echoing like a death knell in the crypt. “Michael found the security footage and the ring the killer left behind. He was going to expose Vanessa the night he died.”
Luca staggered backward, bumping into the stone wall, the devastating reality crushing the breath from his lungs. His fiancée had orchestrated the murder of his father.
Before Luca could process the betrayal, a massive, deafening explosion rocked the crypt.
The iron door of the storage room was blown entirely off its hinges, crushing Father Thomas beneath the heavy metal.
I screamed, diving under the wooden table.
Through the dust and smoke, Victor stepped into the room, flanked by his remaining cartel mercenaries.
May you like
Victor smiled, aiming his assault rifle directly at Luca’s chest.
“I told you, Boss,” Victor sneered. “You can’t outrun the truth.”
