Chapter 6 – THE WAREHOUSE

The drive back to the city was a blur of asphalt and silence.

Frank had stayed at a roadside motel with Mia, locked inside with Luca’s backup weapon. It was just Luca and me now. The boss and his blood.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Luca said, not taking his eyes off the road. The speedometer hovered at ninety.

“I own half of this family, don’t I?” I said. My voice didn’t shake. I didn’t recognize myself. The terrified maid who picked up poker chips was gone. Thomas Hayes had raised me to count the deck before calling a bluff, and right now, the Bellinis were overplaying their hand.

“They have twenty of my best men at gunpoint, Emily. This isn’t a poker game. It’s a massacre.”

“No, it’s a trap,” I argued. “If Bellini wanted your men dead, he’d have shot them. He’s pouring gasoline to make sure you come to the warehouse. He wants to end the Moretti line in one night. Both of us.”

Luca gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. “Then I go in alone.”

“If you go in alone, you die.” I reached into my coat and pulled out the heavy gold watch I’d picked off Marco’s unconscious body at the cabin. “Marco was the head of security. He had the bypass codes to the warehouse’s automated blast doors. He told me before you knocked him out.”

That was a lie. I’d seen Marco punch in the codes a dozen times while cleaning the study. But Luca didn’t need to know that. He needed to trust me.

Luca glanced at the watch, then at me. A faint glimmer of respect crossed his dark eyes.

We pulled into an abandoned shipyard two blocks from the Moretti warehouse. The smell of salt and rust hung heavy in the damp air.

We moved on foot, slipping through the shadows of towering shipping containers.

Up ahead, the warehouse doors were wide open. Inside, glaring halogen lights illuminated a terrifying scene.

Twenty Moretti men knelt on the concrete, hands zip-tied behind their backs. The floor was slick with gasoline.

Mr. Bellini sat in a leather chair in the center of the room, smoking a cigar. Vanessa stood beside him, holding a lighter.

“He’s not coming, Papa,” Vanessa complained. “He’s a coward, just like his father.”

“He’ll come,” Bellini grunted. “Luca’s tragic flaw is loyalty.”

Luca pulled his Glock and checked the chamber. He looked at me, pointing to a rusted side door connected to the warehouse ventilation room.

“Punch in the code,” Luca whispered. “When the blast doors drop, it’ll lock Bellini inside with my men, but cut off his reinforcements waiting outside. I’ll take Bellini. You stay out of sight.”

I nodded.

I crept along the brick wall, my heart hammering against my ribs. I reached the keypad by the side door. I punched in the numbers. 4-9-2-7.

A loud, mechanical klaxon wailed.

Inside the warehouse, massive steel blast doors began dropping from the ceiling, sealing off the loading docks. Bellini’s men on the outside shouted, banging on the metal as it locked into place.

Inside, it was just Bellini, Vanessa, five armed guards, and the captive Moretti soldiers.

Luca stepped out from the shadows into the harsh halogen light, his gun raised.

“Drop the lighter, Vanessa,” Luca commanded, his voice echoing off the high ceilings.

Bellini didn’t flinch. He smiled around his cigar.

“Right on time, my boy.”

His guards raised their assault rifles, aiming directly at Luca.

Suddenly, a cold, hard barrel pressed against the back of my own head by the keypad door.

“Don’t move,” a voice hissed.

A guard dragged me into the warehouse, tossing me onto the gasoline-soaked concrete at Vanessa’s feet.

Luca’s eyes widened in horror. “Emily!”

Vanessa laughed, clicking the lighter open and shut. “You really thought Marco was the only rat in your house, Luca? You’re so predictable.”

Bellini stood up. “Drop the gun, Luca. Or my daughter drops the lighter. You, the maid, and your entire crew burn together.”

Luca looked at me. I was kneeling in the gasoline.

He slowly lowered his gun and dropped it onto the floor.

“Good boy,” Bellini sneered. He walked over and kicked the gun away. “Now, get on your knees.”

Luca slowly sank to his knees.

Vanessa stepped forward, holding the open flame inches from my gasoline-soaked apron.

“Any last words for the help, Luca?” she taunted.

I looked up at Vanessa. And I smiled.

“Did you count the deck, Vanessa?” I asked.

She frowned. “What?”

“Before I punched in the code, I opened the ventilation valves on the side of the building.” I looked at Bellini. “Gasoline fumes are heavier than air. They pool on the ground. But in an enclosed space with the blast doors down and the vents open…”

Bellini’s face went pale. He smelled the air.

The concentration of fumes was suffocating.

“If you drop that lighter,” I said softly, “we don’t burn, Vanessa. The entire warehouse detonates. You included.”