Chapter 6 - THE BOY IN THE SMOKE
“Caleb!” Nora screamed, coughing as the thick, acrid smoke burned her lungs.
Gunfire echoed off the corrugated steel roof.
Men were shouting in Italian and English.
Nora couldn't see more than three feet in front of her.
“Caleb!” she yelled again.
She heard a small, distinctive sound to her left.
A rhythmic tapping against metal.
Tap-tap-tap.
It was Caleb. It was the rhythm he used when he was anxious and didn't have his tablet.
Nora dropped to her knees and crawled under the blinding white smoke.
She found the metal chair.
Caleb was tied to it, his eyes squeezed shut, coughing violently.
“I'm here, buddy,” Nora cried, pulling desperately at the thick ropes around his wrists. “I'm here.”
The ropes were knotted too tightly. Her fingers were slipping.
Suddenly, a massive figure loomed out of the smoke above them.
It was one of Rossi’s men.
He raised the butt of his assault rifle, aiming directly at Nora’s head.
Nora threw her body over her brother to shield him.
A silenced gunshot cut through the noise.
The Rossi thug dropped to the floor, dead before he hit the concrete.
Adrian stepped out of the gray mist.
His face was streaked with soot and blood.
He didn't say a word. He knelt, took his combat knife, and sliced through Caleb’s ropes in two swift motions.
He grabbed the boy’s arm and pulled him up.
“Move,” Adrian ordered.
He pushed Nora and Caleb toward the exit, firing his weapon into the smoke to cover their retreat.
They burst out of the warehouse doors and into the freezing rain.
Adrian’s security chief threw open the door of the armored SUV.
Nora shoved Caleb inside and climbed in behind him.
Adrian fired three more shots into the warehouse, then jumped into the front passenger seat.
“Drive!” Adrian shouted.
The heavy vehicle tore out of the industrial yard, tires screaming against the wet asphalt.
In the back seat, Nora pulled Caleb into a desperate, crushing hug.
The sixteen-year-old boy buried his face in her shoulder, shaking uncontrollably.
“You're safe,” Nora sobbed into his hair. “You're safe now.”
Adrian looked back at them.
He saw his older brother’s face in the boy’s terrified eyes.
The Falcone bloodline.
“We need to get to the safe house,” the driver said.
“No,” Adrian commanded. “We go back to the estate. The Rossis are broken. Carlo is dead in that warehouse. The rest will scatter.”
They drove back to the mansion in silence.
When they arrived, the gates were heavily fortified.
Adrian led Nora and Caleb directly into the grand foyer.
Teresa was waiting.
Her wheelchair was positioned right at the entrance.
When she saw Caleb, the elderly woman did something that shocked everyone in the room.
She pushed herself up.
Her legs trembled violently. She hadn't stood in eighteen months.
Adrian rushed forward to catch her, but she waved him away with her good hand.
Teresa took one agonizing, shaky step.
Then another.
She reached Caleb.
She touched his face. Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, the shape of his eyes.
Tears streamed down her wrinkled cheeks.
She looked at Adrian, then back at the boy.
And with immense, painful effort, Teresa forced her paralyzed vocal cords to work.
“Julian,” she whispered.
Caleb didn't know who Julian was. He only knew this frail old woman was crying for him.
He reached out and gently hugged her.
Teresa buried her face in the boy's shoulder, weeping for the son she lost fifteen years ago, and the grandson she had just found.
Nora stood back, wiping her eyes.
Adrian walked over to her.
“He is family,” Adrian said softly. “He will never want for anything again. The best doctors, the best schools, the best security. He is a Falcone.”
Nora looked up at him.
“And what about me?”
Adrian’s expression softened completely.
“You are the woman who saved my mother’s mind. You are the woman who raised my brother’s son. You are family, Nora. This is your home.”
Nora smiled, a deep, exhausted sense of relief washing over her.
The nightmare was over.
Or so they thought.
Because while they were focused on the reunion in the foyer, the heavy oak doors of the mansion slowly opened behind them.
A woman stepped out of the freezing rain.
She was soaking wet, holding a small silver revolver.
It was Sarah.
Nora and Caleb’s mother.
May you like
And she was pointing the gun directly at Adrian’s head.
TITLE: THE MOTHER IN THE RAIN
