Chapter 8 - A Brother's Awakening
Chaos erupted in the underground vault.
Marco didn't run. He grabbed the heavy steel footlocker lid and slammed it shut, driving his shoulder into Richard Hale’s chest. The impact knocked Richard backward onto the concrete floor, his gun skidding across the dust and disappearing under the overturned oak table.
Serena screamed, scrambling backward toward the ladder as the injured thug on the floor drew a backup combat knife from his boot.
"Dominic, get to the ladder!" Marco shouted, sidestepping a wild punch from the second thug who had recovered from Dominic's tackle.
Marco was a chef, but he was also a man who had hauled hundred-pound sacks of flour, butchered whole sides of beef, and worked grueling sixteen-hour shifts in oppressive heat for fifteen years. He caught the thug's extended arm, twisted the wrist with brutal leverage, and slammed his steel-toed boot into the man's knee. The joint popped, and the thug went down with a guttural roar.
Richard scrambled to his feet, his tailored suit covered in gray subterranean dust. He pulled a second, smaller revolver from his ankle holster, his eyes wild with desperation.
"I built an empire!" Richard snarled, leveling the gun at Marco's chest. "I won't let a greasy line cook take it away from me!"
*CRACK!*
A heavy iron frying pan smashed directly into the back of Richard’s skull.
Richard’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed face-first onto the concrete floor like a felled oak.
Standing behind him, breathing heavily and gripping a blackened cast-iron skillet with both trembling, zip-tied hands, was Dominic.
Dominic looked down at the unconscious billionaire, then up at his younger brother. Sweat and blood dripped down Dominic's bruised temple.
"Nobody calls my brother a line cook," Dominic panted, his chest heaving.
Marco stared at his brother for a second, then a faint, grim smile broke across his face. He picked up the knife the downed thug had dropped and swiftly sliced through the plastic restraints binding Dominic's wrists.
"Where did you get the skillet?" Marco asked.
"Ma always told me never to go into a cellar without cast iron," Dominic muttered, rubbing his raw wrists.
Above them, through the square opening in the ceiling, the sound of loud, rapid footsteps thudded across the commercial kitchen tiles. Shouting echoed down the shaft.
"Federal agents! Drop your weapons! Everyone stay where you are!"
Serena, who was halfway up the iron ladder, froze.
Marco looked up. The beam of high-powered tactical flashlights cut through the dust opening. Down the rungs came tactical officers clad in black body armor bearing the bright yellow letters: **FBI — ORGANIZED CRIME DIVISION.**
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Behind them, climbing down the ladder with the agility of someone twenty years younger, was Maria Rossi.
She wore her heavy wool coat, her silver hair pulled back into her signature tight bun, and in her hand was Antonio Rossi’s stained cookbook.
