Chapter 8 - THE SECOND SUV
The impact threw me violently against the dashboard.
My seatbelt locked, bruising my collarbone.
In the back seat, Isabella screamed, wrapping her body entirely around little Leo to shield him.
“Hold on!” Luca roared.
He jerked the steering wheel hard to the right. The sedan fish-tailed on the slick, rain-soaked asphalt, tires screaming in protest.
We narrowly missed the concrete barrier of the highway.
The black SUV didn't back off. It accelerated, its high beams blinding us in the rearview mirror.
It slammed into us again, metal crunching with sickening force.
“They’re trying to run us off the bridge!” Isabella panicked.
“They won’t,” Luca said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, cold calm.
He slammed on the brakes.
The heavy sedan decelerated instantly.
The SUV, expecting us to flee, couldn't react in time.
It smashed into our trunk, but the sudden lack of momentum caused the taller vehicle to lose traction.
The SUV skidded wildly to the left, its tires hydroplaning on the wet road.
It scraped hard against the concrete barrier, sparks showering into the night, before grinding to a violent halt, pinning its passenger doors shut against the wall.
Luca threw our car into park.
He grabbed his handgun from the center console.
“Keep your heads down,” he ordered.
He kicked his door open and stepped out into the torrential rain.
I couldn't just sit there. My heart was pounding so hard I felt it in my teeth.
I unbuckled my belt and cracked my door open, staying low.
Luca walked purposefully toward the wrecked SUV. He didn't run. He walked with the heavy, inevitable stride of an executioner.
He raised his weapon, aiming directly at the driver’s side window.
The tinted window slowly rolled down.
A man sat in the driver’s seat. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, his hands raised in surrender.
But it wasn't Marcus.
It was a young man in a cheap suit, looking absolutely terrified.
“Don't shoot!” the man begged, his voice cracking. “I’m just the driver!”
Luca pressed the barrel of the gun against the man’s temple.
“Where is Marcus? Where is my grandson?”
“I don't have the kid!” the driver sobbed. “Marcus paid me to wait near the mansion. He told me to watch for a black sedan leaving the property and run it off the road.”
“Where is Marcus?” Luca repeated, cocking the hammer.
“He’s at the old foundry!” the man cried. “Not the pier! He took the boy to the South Side foundry. He said he needed an incinerator to hide the evidence. Please, God, don't kill me!”
Luca lowered the gun.
He didn't waste a bullet. He brought the heavy steel handle of the weapon down hard against the driver’s temple, knocking him unconscious.
Luca sprinted back to our car and threw it in gear.
“South Side,” Luca barked, peeling away from the wrecked SUV. “The abandoned steel foundry.”
Isabella sobbed in the back seat. “An incinerator. Dad, no.”
“He won’t touch him, Bella. We have eight minutes.”
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking so violently I couldn't interlock my fingers.
I thought about the burner phone Dominic had dropped.
Check in every hour, or the boy dies.
I reached into my wet apron pocket.
My fingers brushed against something hard.
Not the phone. I didn't have the phone. Luca had left it on the floor of the foyer.
No, this was something else.
It was the heavy crystal shard I had used to cut my thumb earlier in the dining room. I had wrapped it in a napkin and shoved it into my pocket before Dominic found me.
Why did I keep it?
I didn't know. But my fingers closed tightly around the sharp edges.
The car tore through the industrial district of the South Side, splashing through deep puddles.
Looming ahead in the darkness was the massive, rusted skeleton of the old steel foundry. A single solitary light burned in the main warehouse.
Luca slammed the car to a halt behind a pile of rusted shipping containers.
“Stay here,” he told Isabella. “Lock the doors. Do not open them for anyone but me.”
Isabella nodded, holding Leo so tight the boy was burying his face in her neck.
Luca looked at me. “Emma. Stay with them.”
“Sir—”
“Do not argue with me,” he commanded softly. “You’ve done enough.”
Luca slipped into the shadows, running silently toward the massive steel doors of the foundry.
I sat in the passenger seat, the rain drumming relentlessly against the roof.
Five minutes passed.
Then, a gunshot echoed from inside the building.
A loud, booming crack that shook the air.
Isabella screamed.
I didn't think.
I threw open the passenger door and ran toward the building.
“Emma!” Isabella cried.
I ignored her. I slipped through the heavy, half-open steel doors of the foundry.
Inside, it was a cavern of rusted catwalks and ancient machinery.
At the far end, near the massive brick incinerator oven, two figures were locked in a brutal struggle.
Luca and Marcus.
Luca was massive, but Marcus was twenty years younger and desperate.
Marcus had a steel pipe. He swung it viciously, catching Luca in the ribs.
Luca roared in pain, dropping to one knee. His gun clattered across the concrete floor, sliding into the darkness.
Marcus raised the pipe for a killing blow.
I looked frantically around.
There, sitting on a dirty metal workbench twenty feet away, was a tiny figure in a blue coat.
Matteo.
He was tied to a chair, his eyes wide with terror, a gag in his mouth.
May you like
I had to choose. Help Luca, or get the boy.
I ran for the workbench.
