Chapter 8 - The Getaway
Emma stared at the vintage Mustang, her mouth falling open.
She had left Thomas helpless on the grass patio just fifteen minutes ago. Now, he was sitting in the passenger seat of a muscle car that had just annihilated the man trying to kill them.
Marco, the silver-haired enforcer, limped around the front of the crushed cars. He looked at Julian’s unconscious body, then kicked the submachine gun across the garage floor.
"Your father sent me a text message an hour ago," Marco said, looking at Alessandro with a grim smile. "He used an old flip phone he kept hidden in his mattress. Told me Julian was making a move."
Alessandro stepped out from behind the pillar, utterly bewildered. "My father texted you?"
Marco nodded. "He’s been typing out messages with one finger for months, waiting for the right time. When I pulled up to the estate and saw the smoke, I found him on the patio. He insisted we come down here."
Alessandro walked over to the Mustang and looked through the shattered passenger window.
Thomas looked back at his son. His hands were shaking, and he looked incredibly frail, but his eyes were sharper and clearer than they had been in four years.
He slowly raised his trembling finger and pointed at Emma, who was still huddled behind the pillar.
"He wants to make sure she's safe," Marco translated gruffly.
Alessandro turned back to Emma and held out his hand. "Come on. We have to go before the police and fire trucks block the main road."
Emma took his hand, letting him pull her up. Her legs were shaky, her back throbbing, but she felt a surge of incredible relief.
They piled into Alessandro’s black SUV. Marco took the wheel, Alessandro sat shotgun, and Emma sat in the back with Thomas, carefully helping him transfer from the wrecked Mustang.
As the SUV sped out of the underground garage and into the fading afternoon light, the true scale of the destruction became clear. The east wing of the Carbone estate was engulfed in flames, black smoke billowing into the Connecticut sky. Sirens wailed in the distance.
Emma sat beside Thomas, her hands folded over her belly.
The old man looked at her. He didn't look like a terrifying mafia boss. He just looked like a father who had almost lost his child.
He slowly reached out, his trembling fingers brushing against her arm.
Emma looked down at him. "You knew," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "You knew who I was the whole time."
Thomas nodded slowly. A single tear slipped down his weathered cheek.
He reached into the pocket of his cardigan and pulled out a small, faded photograph. He handed it to Emma.
It was a picture of a younger Thomas, standing beside a beautiful woman with a bright smile. It was Margaret, Emma’s mother.
Emma stared at the picture, the reality of her parentage finally sinking in. "She told me you died."
Alessandro turned around from the front seat, his expression softening. "She said that to protect you, Emma. My father's world is dangerous. If Julian or the rival families had known my father had a daughter outside the marriage, they would have used you against him. My mother’s death proved that."
"He let me think he was dead so I would be safe?" Emma asked, looking at Thomas.
Thomas nodded again, his eyes filled with profound regret.
He tapped his finger against the little brass bell resting in his lap.
Ding.
One ring. I'm sorry.
Emma reached out and gently covered his trembling hand with hers. "You don't have to apologize. You saved my life today."
"We all saved each other," Alessandro said quietly. He looked at the ledger and the silver locket sitting on the center console. "But it isn't over. Julian is alive, and his loyalists in the family will try to retaliate when they find out what happened here."
"Where are we going?" Marco asked from the driver's seat, his eyes checking the rearview mirror.
"Manhattan," Alessandro said, his voice hardening into the ruthless tone of a Don. "To the master vault. We get the proof against Julian, and we end his faction tonight."
The drive to the city took two hours. Emma fell into an exhausted sleep against the leather seats, her body drained by the adrenaline and terror of the day.
She woke up as the SUV descended into a private, heavily guarded underground parking facility beneath a towering glass skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan.
"We're here," Alessandro announced.
The facility was swarming with Alessandro’s loyal men, heavily armed and on high alert. The news of the estate fire had reached the city, and the Carbone family was mobilizing for war.
Marco helped Thomas into a spare wheelchair they kept at the facility.
Alessandro led them to a private elevator that required a retinal scan to operate. They descended deep beneath the building, far below the city streets, until the doors opened to reveal a massive, high-security steel vault.
"This is the family’s nerve center," Alessandro explained, approaching the heavy keypad beside the vault door.
He pulled the silver locket from his pocket and looked at the engraved numbers on the back of his mother's photograph.
34-12-88.
Alessandro punched the numbers into the keypad.
The heavy steel bolts slammed back with a deafening thud, and the massive vault door slowly swung open, revealing the heart of the Carbone empire.
But as they stepped inside, Alessandro froze, his blood running cold.
The vault wasn't empty.
Sitting at a mahogany desk in the center of the room, calmly sipping a glass of scotch, was a woman Emma had never seen before.
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She had sharp, elegant features, perfectly styled dark hair, and cold, calculating eyes.
"You're late, Alessandro," the woman said smoothly, setting her glass down. "I was beginning to think Julian actually managed to kill you."
