Chapter 5 - A Ghost in the Shadow
The rain was falling in torrential sheets across the Hudson River as a convoy of three black, armored SUVs sliced through the midnight fog.
Inside the lead vehicle, Lorenzo sat in the passenger seat, cleaning the slide of his custom semi-automatic. His mind was an incandescent blur of fury and anticipation. *Pinehurst. Two hours north.*
Behind them at the estate, Victor Moretti was currently being held in the basement under the watchful guard of Lorenzo’s most loyal soldiers. Lorenzo had refused to kill Victor yet. A bullet to the head was far too clean, far too merciful. Victor would watch him bring his daughter home first; Victor would see that his betrayal had failed entirely before he took his last breath.
"Boss," Marco said from behind the steering wheel, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror. "We’ve got company."
Lorenzo didn’t even look up from his weapon. "How many?"
"Four black Suburbans. No plates. They came out of the tree line off Exit 42. They're boxing us in."
"Victor’s loyalists," Lorenzo muttered coldly. "He must have had a dead-man trigger on his phone. When he didn't check in every two hours, his private militia mobilized."
Suddenly, the night shattered.
The rear window of their SUV spider-webbed under a hail of high-caliber rifle fire. The armored glass held, but the impact sent tremors through the heavy vehicle.
"Ram them!" Lorenzo commanded.
Marco slammed the accelerator, the supercharged V8 engine roaring like an enraged predator. The heavy SUV surged forward, slamming into the side of an enemy vehicle that was attempting a PIT maneuver. Sparks showered into the black night as metal ground against metal at eighty miles per hour.
Up ahead, the highway was deserted, slick with rain and flanked by dense pine forests.
"They don't want to capture us," Marco yelled over the deafening cacophony of bullets slamming into the armor plating. "They want to kill us before we cross the state line!"
"They want to kill my daughter’s father," Lorenzo corrected, his eyes blazing in the dark. He reached into the back, grabbing a suppressed tactical carbine. He cracked his window three inches, leveled the barrel through the reinforced slot, and squeezed the trigger.
Three precise shots. The lead pursuer's front tire blew out with a violent pop. The vehicle spun violently across the wet asphalt, flipped three times into the median, and exploded into a massive fireball that illuminated the rainy highway.
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"Step on it, Marco," Lorenzo said, slamming the rifle back into position. "My daughter has waited eight months. She will not wait another hour."
***
