Chapter 6 - Blood Against Blood
The heavy turbo-diesel engine roared to life with a low, menacing purr. Dominic slammed the vehicle into reverse, tore through the wooden doors of the shed, and spun the wheel hard, sending muddy gravel spraying across the lawn.
Rain fell in blinding torrents. Through the rear window, I could see the great Valenti mansion burning against the black sky, the fire illuminating the silhouette of armed men scrambling through the courtyard like ants.
In the back seat, Sophie was curled up between me and Leo. My daughter looked up at the scarred, terrifying man who had spent the last hour plotting her benefactor’s murder.
Leo looked down at her. His scarred hands, covered in rough calluses and powder burns, were trembling.
“You’re the maid’s kid,” Leo whispered, his voice cracking.
Sophie nodded silently, clutching the hem of her cardigan. “You have the same eyes as Mr. Dominic.”
Leo turned his face away toward the window, a ragged breath catching in his throat. He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white against his denim jeans.
“Where are we going, Dom?” Leo asked, his voice subdued, stripped of all its former venom.
“Pocono safehouse,” Dominic replied, his eyes locked onto the winding, unlit mountain road ahead. “Teresa’s property. Marcus doesn’t know it exists. My mother deeded it to Teresa forty years ago under a shell corporation.”
Vance sat in the front passenger seat, monitoring an encrypted police scanner. “Marcus just broadcasted an emergency syndicate alert to the five families. He’s claiming you slaughtered your own security detail in a paranoid breakdown, killed Leo in the cellar, and fled with a hostage maid. He’s putting a three-million-dollar bounty on your head.”
Dominic’s expression didn’t change. His jaw remained set like concrete. “Let him spend his money. He won’t live to see the sunrise.”
Suddenly, Vance’s head snapped toward the side mirror. “Boss. Twelve o’clock high on the ridge. Headlights.”
A pair of high-powered halogen beams flared to life in the darkness behind us, tearing through the sheets of rain. Then another. And another.
Three heavy-duty pickup trucks, customized with steel push-bars and mounted lightbars, were barreling down the winding logging trail, closing the distance at terrifying speed.
“Marcus’s personal enforcers,” Leo growled, reaching into the footlocker Vance had tossed in the back. He grabbed an AR-15 rifle and racked the charging handle with terrifying familiarity. “They tracked the transponder in my tactical vest! The bastard had a bug on me the entire time!”
“Strip it and throw it out the window!” Dominic roared, downshifting the SUV as we hit a dangerous, hairpin curve at sixty miles per hour. The tires screamed against the slick asphalt, the tail end sliding precariously close to a three-hundred-foot ravine before Dominic corrected with masterclass precision.
Leo ripped the ceramic plate carrier off his chest, unclipped the transponder unit, and hurled it through the cracked rear window.
It was too late. The lead truck slammed into our rear bumper with a deafening crunch of metal.
Sophie shrieked, burying her face into my chest. I threw my body over her, locking my arms around her head as the SUV violently fishtailed.
“HOLD ON!” Dominic yelled.
The lead truck pulled up alongside the driver’s side, its tinted window rolling down to reveal a man in a balaclava holding an Uzi submachine gun.
Before the shooter could squeeze the trigger, Leo smashed our rear passenger window with the barrel of his rifle and leaned his upper body out into the freezing rain.
“NOT TODAY, YOU COWARDS!” Leo screamed.
Leo fired a controlled, five-round burst directly into the lead truck’s front left tire. The heavy rubber blew apart with a concussive pop. The truck swerved violently, its push-bar digging into the rocky embankment, sending the vehicle cartwheeling three times through the air before exploding into an inferno in the trees behind us.
“ONE DOWN!” Leo shouted, pulling himself back inside, his face wet with rain and streaked with blood.
“Two more on our tail!” Vance warned, firing his own sidearm through the shattered rear window.
The second truck rammed us from behind again, harder this time. The SUV’s back frame groaned. The steering wheel shook violently in Dominic’s hands as our front right tire hit a patch of black ice near the bridge crossing.
Ahead of us was the narrow, wooden-planked bridge over Devil’s Creek—a raging, white-water torrent swollen with mountain runoff forty feet below.
And parked directly on the far side of the bridge, completely blocking the narrow exit, was a black Cadillac Escalade.
Its headlights flipped on, blinding us completely.
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Standing in the beam of those lights, wearing a long cashmere overcoat and holding a silver umbrella, was Marcus DeLuca.
***
