Chapter 7 - THE BRACELET
Vincent stared at the silver locket dangling from Hannah’s fingers.
The freezing rain battered the deck of the speedboat, but neither of them blinked.
“I won’t use Clara’s daughter as bait,” Vincent said, his jaw locked tight. “My father’s sins put your mother in the ground. I won’t put you next to her.”
“You’re not putting me anywhere,” Hannah shot back, her voice rising over the roar of the boat’s engines. “For twenty-six years, I have let other people decide what happens to me. Foster parents. Bosses. Customers who think a waitress is invisible. I am done hiding.”
She stepped closer to the mafia don, the thermal blanket slipping from her shoulders.
“Dominic knows I survived the crash,” Hannah said. “He knows I have the SD card. If you go back there alone, he’ll just bunker down and wait for you to die. But if he thinks I’m running, if he thinks I’m vulnerable…”
Vincent’s dark eyes narrowed. He was calculating the risk, weighing the ruthless logic of her plan against the guilt that had haunted him for decades.
“He’s headed for the private airstrip in Gary,” Vincent finally said, his voice rough. “He’ll try to leave the country before the sun comes up and the federal authorities realize the Duca estate is ashes.”
“Then we meet him there,” Hannah said.
Vincent looked at Sophia, who was wrapped tightly in blankets, watching them with wide, frightened eyes.
He knelt down and kissed her forehead. “Go with the men, sweetie. Daddy will be right behind you.”
He stood up and nodded to the team leader. The medic gently guided Sophia into the enclosed cabin of the speedboat.
Vincent turned back to Hannah. He didn’t hand her a gun. He knew she didn’t know how to use it, and a hesitation in a firefight was worse than being unarmed.
Instead, he reached into his soaked trousers and pulled out a heavy, tarnished silver object.
It was a bracelet. Thick, interlocking links of pure silver, marred by the same heat and soot that had scarred his arm.
“I pulled this from the ashes of your mother’s apartment twenty-four years ago,” Vincent said quietly.
He unclasped it and wrapped it around Hannah’s left wrist. It was heavy, cold, and fit perfectly.
“Clara was wearing this the day she died,” Vincent explained, locking the clasp. “She used it to break the window before she handed you to me. It is forged from solid, tempered steel beneath the silver plating. It is unbreakable.”
He looked into Hannah’s hazel eyes.
“If Dominic gets close to you,” Vincent instructed, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper, “you don’t run. You don’t beg. You use that bracelet to shatter his jaw.”
Hannah touched the cold metal on her wrist. The weight of her mother’s courage suddenly felt tangible, anchored to her own skin.
“I understand,” Hannah said.
Ten minutes later, the secondary speedboat docked at a rusted, abandoned pier on the industrial edge of Gary, Indiana.
Vincent led the way, moving silently through the shadows of decaying steel mills and overgrown train tracks. The private airstrip sat a mile inland, hidden behind high chain-link fences and razor wire.
As they approached the perimeter, the whine of a jet engine cut through the storm.
A sleek Gulfstream jet was idling on the tarmac, its stairs lowered.
Standing near the base of the stairs, shielded by umbrellas held by four heavily armed mercenaries, was Dominic Salerno.
He was holding a metal briefcase, barking orders into a cell phone.
“He’s preparing to board,” Vincent whispered, crouching behind a stack of rusted shipping containers near the fence.
Vincent pulled his suppressed pistol. He checked his angles.
“Four guards,” Vincent analyzed clinically. “Two on the stairs. Two flanking. If I take the flankers, the stair guards will grab Dominic and throw him into the plane. He’ll escape.”
Hannah looked at the tarmac. The rain was coming down in sheets, obscuring visibility.
“I’ll draw them out,” Hannah said.
Before Vincent could stop her, she slipped out from behind the shipping container and walked directly out into the open, brightly lit expanse of the tarmac.
“Hey!” Hannah screamed, her voice echoing over the jet engines.
Dominic spun around, dropping his cell phone.
The four guards immediately raised their rifles, aiming red laser sights directly at Hannah’s chest.
She stood perfectly still in her ruined, soaked waitress uniform. She didn’t raise her hands. She raised the silver locket.
“Looking for this?” Hannah yelled.
Dominic’s eyes went wide. The greed that eclipsed his caution was instantaneous.
“Don’t shoot her!” Dominic barked at his men, swatting one of their rifles down. “She has the accounts!”
Dominic stepped out from under the umbrella, walking briskly toward Hannah, rain soaking his expensive suit.
“You really are a stupid girl,” Dominic laughed, closing the distance. “You survived the cliff, and instead of running, you deliver the money directly to me. Clara must be rolling in her grave.”
“Clara was smarter than you,” Hannah said, her voice steady.
“Clara is ash,” Dominic sneered, stopping five feet away. He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
Hannah looked past him.
From the shadows of the shipping containers, Vincent stepped out. He moved like a ghost, raising his weapon with terrifying precision.
Pfft. Pfft.
Two suppressed shots. The two guards flanking the stairs dropped instantly, completely silent.
Dominic heard the bodies hit the wet tarmac. He spun around.
“Vincent!” Dominic roared in shock.
The two remaining guards by the plane panicked, raising their weapons toward Vincent.
But Dominic didn’t shoot at Vincent.
He realized he was exposed. He needed a shield.
Dominic lunged forward, grabbing Hannah by the throat with his massive left hand, yanking her violently in front of him, and pressing his gun to her temple.
“Drop it, Vincent!” Dominic screamed. “Drop the gun, or I blow her brains out!”
Vincent froze, his pistol aimed dead center at Dominic’s face. But Hannah’s head was blocking the shot.
“Let her go, Dominic,” Vincent said, his voice cold and devoid of panic. “It’s over.”
“It’s never over!” Dominic laughed hysterically. “I killed my brother for this money! I burned Clara for this money! I am not leaving without it!”
Dominic squeezed Hannah’s throat tighter, cutting off her air. Black spots danced in her vision.
“Give me the locket,” Dominic hissed in her ear.
Hannah couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak.
But she remembered Vincent’s words.
Don’t run. Don’t beg.
Hannah’s left hand shot upward.
She didn’t aim for his face. She swung her wrist, bringing the heavy, steel-forged silver bracelet of her mother directly upward into the underside of Dominic’s gun hand.
CRACK.
The impact was brutal. The heavy silver smashed into Dominic’s wrist bone, shattering it instantly.
Dominic screamed in agony, his grip on her throat releasing as he dropped the gun onto the tarmac.
Hannah shoved herself backward, falling onto the wet asphalt, completely clearing Vincent’s line of sight.
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Vincent didn’t hesitate.
BANG.
