Chapter 10 - The Broken Daughter
The underground escape tunnel ran half a mile through solid bedrock, opening into an abandoned boathouse hidden beneath the river bluffs.
By the time they reached the hidden speed boat docked in the dark water, the gunfire behind them had faded into sporadic pops. Luca’s surviving men had sealed the blast doors, trapping the remaining Russian attackers in a kill zone rigged with C4.
Luca collapsed against the wooden bench of the boathouse, his face pale beneath the grime and soot. The adrenaline was wearing off, and the wound on his shoulder was bleeding heavily, soaking his black clothes.
Elena dropped to her knees beside him. Without asking, she grabbed a clean towel from an emergency kit on the wall, tore it with her teeth, and pressed it hard against the bleeding wound.
Luca hissed, his teeth gritted, but he didn't pull away. He looked down at her, his dark eyes studying the fierce, desperate focus on her face.
"You should have left me," he rasped, his voice strained. "You could have run into the woods."
"And go where?" Elena snapped, applying more pressure to stop the arterial flow. "Back to the man who just tried to bury me under concrete? Back to my father?"
She tied the makeshift bandage with vicious precision. Her wedding gown was gone. The frightened, sheltered socialite who had walked down the aisle of St. Patrick’s was gone. In her place stood a woman baptized in fire and betrayal, her clothes torn, her skin smudged with ash, her eyes burning with a cold, terrifying clarity.
"You said your father burned Warehouse 14 to hide the paper trail," Elena said, her voice dropping to a low, lethal whisper.
Luca swallowed hard, nodding once. "He thought he burned all the evidence."
"He didn't." Elena looked directly into Luca's eyes. "My father is paranoid. He never trusted the Russians, he never trusted Michael, and he didn't trust his own shadow. Six months ago, he made me sign a set of blind trusts. He told me it was my wedding dowry. But I memorized the routing codes."
Luca’s gaze sharpened, the pain momentarily forgotten. "What routing codes?"
"The master vault isn't in Newark, and it's not in the Cayman Islands," Elena said, a dark, vindictive smile curving her lips. "It's beneath the Federal Reserve depository in Lower Manhattan. A private vault rented under my mother's maiden name. It holds sixty million dollars in uncut diamonds and the unencrypted physical hard drives that detail every bribe, every dirty politician, and every syndicate he ever betrayed."
Luca stared at her, stunned. "He gave you access?"
"Biometric access," Elena whispered, holding up her right hand. "My thumbprint and my retina. He thought I was too stupid, too spoiled to ever look inside. He thought I was just his pretty little shield."
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She leaned closer to Luca, her hand resting against his chest, feeling the heavy, steady thud of his heart.
"You wanted your eighteen million, Luca?" Elena’s eyes flashed with a lethal, icy resolve. "Help me kill my father, and I’ll give you the whole empire."
