Chapter 5 - THE VAULT IN THE WALL
“Hannah!” Gabriel screamed from inside the panic room.
Marco twisted his grip on my hair, forcing me to my knees. The cold barrel of his pistol pressed hard against my temple.
“Step out of the vault, kid,” Marco ordered, his voice devoid of any humanity. “Or I paint the hallway with her brains.”
I looked at the nine-year-old boy. He was shaking, tears streaming down his face, clutching his father’s worn baseball glove. He took a hesitant step forward.
“No!” I screamed, fighting through the agonizing pain in my scalp. “Gabriel, shut the door! Lock it! Don't listen to him!”
Marco backhanded me across the face with his free hand. The world spun, and the taste of copper filled my mouth as I collapsed onto the hardwood floor.
Gabriel let out a terrified sob and ran toward me.
“Gotcha,” Marco smirked, reaching out his massive hand to grab the boy’s collar.
But Marco never touched him.
A deafening roar echoed through the smoke-filled apartment.
Marco’s eyes went wide. He gasped, dropping his gun. He looked down at his chest. A massive, gaping hole had been blown straight through his tactical vest.
He swayed for a second before collapsing backward, dead before he hit the floor.
I scrambled backward, pulling Gabriel into my arms.
Standing at the end of the hallway, leaning heavily against the bullet-riddled kitchen island, was Luca. He was holding a 12-gauge shotgun with one arm. His other arm hung uselessly at his side, blood pouring from the gunshot wound in his shoulder.
“Get in the vault,” Luca ground out, his face pale from blood loss.
He staggered down the hallway, stepping over Marco’s body, and practically fell into the panic room with us.
I grabbed the heavy steel wheel on the inside of the vault door and spun it with all my strength. The heavy locking mechanisms clanked into place just as more of Silvio’s men breached the front room, their bullets sparking harmlessly against the foot-thick titanium door.
We were sealed in.
The panic room was small, dimly lit by emergency red LEDs. It smelled of stale air and adrenaline.
Luca slid down the wall, leaving a streak of blood on the steel. He let out a ragged breath, dropping the shotgun onto the floor.
“Mr. Moretti, you’re bleeding to death,” I panicked, crawling over to him.
I ripped my white maid’s apron off and pressed it hard against the wound on his shoulder. Luca hissed in pain, his head falling back against the wall.
“I’ve had worse,” Luca muttered, though his pale lips betrayed the lie.
Gabriel knelt beside us, his little hands hovering over Luca’s chest. “Uncle Luca, please don't die. Dad died. Please don't die too.”
Luca managed a weak smile, reaching up with his good hand to cup the boy’s cheek. “I’m not going anywhere, buddy. I promised your dad I’d protect you. I intend to keep it.”
I applied maximum pressure to the wound, my hands slick with his blood. “They can't get in here, right?”
“No,” Luca breathed heavily. “The vault is rated for C4 explosives. But we have no cell service in here, and the landline was destroyed in the blast. We can't call for backup.”
“So we’re trapped,” I realized, the claustrophobia instantly setting in.
“For now,” Luca said. He looked at Gabriel. “Gabriel. Why did Silvio want you? He didn't just send Marco to kill me. He specifically ordered him to take you. Why?”
Gabriel sniffled, hugging his baseball glove tightly. “I don't know.”
“Think, buddy,” Luca pressed gently. “Your dad hid the pawn ticket in your glove. Did he give you anything else before he died? A key? A USB drive?”
Gabriel shook his head rapidly. “No! Just the glove! He said the glove was magic. He said it would always protect me.”
I looked at the old, worn leather baseball glove in the boy’s hands. It looked completely ordinary. Faded brown leather, frayed stitching.
But then I remembered something.
“Gabriel, let me see the glove,” I said softly.
He hesitated, then handed it to me.
I turned it over in my hands. The leather was thick, but as I pressed my thumbs into the heavy padding at the base of the palm, I felt something hard. Something that didn't feel like cotton or leather.
It was a small, rigid rectangle buried deep inside the padding.
“Luca,” I whispered, holding it out to him. “There’s something sewn inside.”
Luca’s eyes sharpened. He pulled his pocket knife from his trousers with his good hand and handed it to me.
“Cut it open,” he ordered.
Gabriel let out a small cry. “No! Don't ruin it! It’s all I have left of him!”
“I’ll buy you a hundred gloves, Gabriel, I promise,” I pleaded softly. “But this might save our lives.”
I carefully sliced through the thick stitching at the base of the glove. The leather peeled back.
Tucked safely inside the padding was a tiny, black micro-SD card.
Luca let out a breath of pure disbelief. “Daniel, you absolute genius.”
“What is it?” I asked, holding the tiny chip in my bloody fingers.
“It’s the master ledger,” Luca said, a triumphant smirk cutting through his pain. “The physical book we found in the storage unit only had Vanessa’s transactions. But this chip... if Daniel was investigating Silvio’s shadow syndicate, this chip has all of the Vipers' offshore accounts, their political blackmail files, and the identities of every corrupt judge and cop on Silvio’s payroll.”
“It’s a death sentence for Silvio’s entire operation,” I realized.
“Exactly,” Luca said. “That’s why Silvio ordered Arthur Sterling to buy Gabriel from Vanessa. Silvio knew Daniel hid the chip in the boy’s belongings, but he didn't know where. He needed the kid alive to tear his life apart until he found it.”
Suddenly, the heavy steel door of the vault reverberated with a massive THUD.
Gabriel screamed, covering his ears.
Another THUD followed. It sounded like a sledgehammer hitting the titanium.
“They can't break through that,” Luca said confidently, though his voice was weakening from blood loss.
But then, a voice echoed through the thick steel. It was muffled, but unmistakably clear through the vault’s emergency intercom speaker.
“You’re right, Luca,” Silvio’s voice crackled through the speaker. “I can't break through the door. But I don't have to.”
I stared at the speaker in horror.
“The safe house was built with a state-of-the-art ventilation system,” Silvio purred. “To filter out biological attacks. But I have the override codes, nephew.”
A loud mechanical hiss echoed from the ceiling of the panic room.
I looked up. A thick, grey gas began pouring out of the air vents.
“Carbon monoxide,” Luca coughed, his eyes widening in sheer panic. “He’s flooding the room.”
“You have three minutes before you all fall asleep forever,” Silvio’s voice mocked. “Open the door, give me the boy and the chip, and I’ll let you and the maid walk away. Refuse, and you all die in a steel coffin.”
Gabriel began to cough, clutching my apron.
I looked at Luca. He was too weak to stand. We had a microchip that could destroy an empire, and it was going to die in this room with us.
“Luca, what do we do?” I cried, pulling my shirt over Gabriel’s mouth to filter the air.
Luca looked at me, his dark eyes filled with absolute, terrifying resolve.
“We don't negotiate with snakes,” Luca whispered.
He reached into his pocket with his good hand and pulled out a small, heavy silver object.
It was the Zippo lighter he had taken from Daniel’s bloody coat in the storage unit. The one that belonged to Marco.
Luca flicked the lid open.
“Hannah,” Luca commanded, his voice deadly serious. “When I light this, you grab Gabriel, and you run out that door as fast as you can. Do not look back.”
“What are you doing?!” I screamed as the grey gas filled the room.
“Carbon monoxide isn't just toxic,” Luca smiled grimly. “In a highly concentrated, pressurized room... it’s extremely flammable.”
Luca reached up and spun the wheel on the vault door, unlocking it.
May you like
He kicked the heavy door open just a crack.
And then, he struck the lighter.
