Chapter 8 - THE FLASHLIGHT
The darkness in the warehouse was absolute.
Panic erupted on the catwalk. The gunmen shouted, sweeping the area blindly, unsure of where the voice had come from.
“Shoot them!” Anthony’s mother shrieked. “Turn on your flashlights!”
A single, blinding beam of light sliced through the darkness from the ground floor, directly below the catwalk.
It illuminated the funeral director.
But he didn’t look like a mild-mannered mortician anymore.
He was holding a heavy tactical shotgun, aimed straight up at the catwalk structure.
“I said drop them,” the funeral director repeated, racking the shotgun with a terrifying, metallic clack.
Answer one.
The funeral director wasn’t a random civilian.
Open two.
Who was he really working for?
“Who the hell are you?” Anthony’s mother demanded, squinting into the glare of the flashlight.
“My name is Elias,” the funeral director said calmly. “And I work for the man you murdered nine years ago.”
The reversal stunned everyone in the room.
Elias wasn’t a Russo. He wasn’t working for Bianca. He was a deep-cover loyalist to Anthony’s father, embedded in the city’s infrastructure to watch over the family from the shadows.
“Daniel came to me before he died,” Elias continued, his voice echoing powerfully. “He told me he suspected you. He told me to watch the funeral. To make sure the watch was found.”
Elias shifted his aim slightly.
“And he told me that if you ever tried to hurt Anthony or Leo, I was to bring this building down.”
Elias didn’t aim at the men.
He aimed at the massive, rusted iron stanchions supporting the aged metal catwalk.
“Anthony, get down!” Elias roared.
Anthony grabbed my arm, tackling me to the concrete floor behind a massive steel shipping container.
BOOM.
The shotgun blast was deafening.
Elias blew the primary support joint completely out.
The catwalk groaned, metal screaming against metal.
“No!” Anthony’s mother screamed.
The entire left side of the catwalk collapsed, sending two of the gunmen tumbling twenty feet to the hard concrete below. They didn’t get up.
The remaining two gunmen panicked, firing wildly into the dark before scrambling toward the emergency exit stairs.
Anthony’s mother clung desperately to the railing of the tilted catwalk, her immaculate mourning suit covered in rust and dust.
Anthony stood up from behind the container, his weapon raised, the flashlight beam catching his face.
He looked up at the woman who gave him life. The woman who had taken everything else away.
“It’s over, Mother,” Anthony said. His voice wasn’t angry anymore. It was just incredibly sad.
She stared down at him, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and unyielding pride.
“You can’t shoot me, Anthony,” she spat, gripping the railing. “I am your mother.”
“I know,” Anthony said softly.
He lowered his gun.
He couldn’t pull the trigger. Despite everything, she was blood.
Anthony’s mother smiled, a wicked, triumphant smirk. She began to carefully pull herself up the tilted grating toward the remaining stable platform.
“You always were weak, Anthony. Just like your father.”
She reached the top platform and turned toward the exit stairs.
But standing at the top of the stairs, blocking her path, was a figure in the shadows.
It was Elena.
She had followed us from the safe house.
Elena stepped into the dim light. She didn’t have a gun. She didn’t have a knife.
She was just holding the oversized gold bracelet Leo had been wearing. The one Anthony’s mother had forced her to leave behind ten years ago.
“You took ten years of my life,” Elena said, her voice shaking with a decade of suppressed rage. “You took my son’s childhood.”
Anthony’s mother sneered, stepping toward her. “Get out of my way, you pathetic—”
Elena didn’t move.
As the older woman lunged forward to push her aside, Elena swung her arm with everything she had.
The heavy, solid gold bracelet struck Anthony’s mother squarely across the temple.
The older woman’s eyes rolled back. She stumbled backward, her heel catching on the broken grating of the collapsed catwalk.
She lost her balance.
She didn’t scream as she fell.
She hit the concrete floor below with a sickening thud.
And then, there was only silence.
Anthony ran forward, shining the flashlight on the floor.
His mother was completely still.
It was over. The poison in the Romano family had finally been cut out.
Elena walked slowly down the stairs, her hands shaking, dropping the gold bracelet onto the floor.
Anthony met her at the bottom. He pulled her into a fierce, desperate embrace, burying his face in her hair.
Elias lowered his shotgun, stepping out of the shadows.
He looked at me.
“Are you alright, Kate?” he asked gently.
I looked at the broken locket in my hand. The lie of my entire life.
“I don’t know who I am,” I whispered.
Anthony pulled away from Elena and looked at me. He walked over, his expression softer than I had ever seen it.
“You’re the woman who saw what everyone else missed,” Anthony said. “You’re the reason my son is safe. You’re family, Kate. If you want to be.”
I looked at the bodies on the floor. The blood. The legacy of the name written on my hidden birth certificate.
“I don’t want to be a Russo,” I said firmly. “And I don’t want to be a Romano.”
May you like
Anthony smiled, a genuine, tired smile.
“Good,” he said. “Because this city needs something new.”
