Chapter 7 - The Harbor Reckoning
The gunfight at the Brookline estate did not last long.
Thomas Vance had hired twenty former private military contractors, outfitting them with tactical gear, night-vision goggles, and automatic carbines. They expected to hit a private residence defended by frightened domestic staff and a handful of mob enforcers.
They did not know that the Duca estate had been built in 1928 by a man who survived the Castellammarese War—complete with reinforced steel shutters, subterranean tunnels, and crossfire bunkers hidden within the stone perimeter walls.
Inside the master suite, Clara woke with a sharp, gasping start.
*Crack-crack-crack!*
The sound of gunfire rolled through the dense autumn woods like heavy thunder.
Clara’s hand flew to her chest. Her heart was hammering, a wild, agonizing bird trapped in her ribs. "Noel..." she cried out, trying to push herself up on her elbows. "Noel!"
"Stay down, Clara."
The voice came from the shadows beside the adjoining door.
Raphael was there. He had returned from the docks without a drop of rain on his wool coat. In his right hand, held casually down at his side, was a matte-black Beretta.
In the adjoining room, Noel was sitting on the edge of her bed, rubbing her eyes through her pink glasses, holding her one-eyed horse. Mrs. Dora was standing over her with a warm mug of cocoa, completely unfazed by the distant sound of shattering glass and tactical suppression fire outside.
"What is happening?" Clara wept, her breath hitching painfully. "They've come for me... they're going to take Noel—"
"Nobody is taking anyone," Raphael said. He walked across the room, placed the pistol inside a concealed wall panel behind a portrait, and sat on the edge of her bed.
He took both of her shaking hands in his.
"The men outside belong to Thomas Vance," Raphael explained, his voice so quiet, so remarkably steady, that the madness happening three hundred yards away seemed like a distant nightmare. "They came to find leverage. They found forty men with high-caliber rifles instead."
A heavy muffled explosion rattled the floorboards from the direction of the gatehouse.
"Is it... over?" Clara whispered, looking into his eyes.
"It was over eight years ago," Raphael replied. "They just didn't know it until tonight."
The bedroom door clicked open. Milo stepped into the threshold, his face streaked with soot, his trench coat damp.
"It’s cleared, boss," Milo reported smoothly. "Thomas Vance surrendered after his lead vehicle was disabled. The survivors are in federal custody. The FBI has just raided Vance Shipping headquarters in the Financial District. The senator’s confession was leaked to the press twenty minutes ago."
Raphael nodded once. "And the road to the private airfield?"
"Open and secure. Dr. Al-Mansoor’s transport has just entered Massachusetts airspace. He will land at Logan within forty minutes."
Clara looked between Raphael and Milo, her eyes swimming with confusion and panic. "Airfield? Dr. Al-Mansoor? Raphael, what are you doing?"
Raphael looked down at her fragile hands. The skin was paper-thin, the veins blue and faint.
"You have spent eight years cleaning floors to keep a roof over your daughter's head," Raphael said softly. "You carried the truth about my father when you had every reason to forget it. You took an iron bar to your leg and stayed silent to protect your mother."
He leaned closer, his dark eyes fierce with a protective fury that took Clara’s breath away.
"You are done cleaning floors, Clara," he whispered. "You are done hiding in cold rooms in Chelsea. Tonight, you let someone fight for you."
Before Clara could answer, her monitors began to scream.
A high-pitched, continuous alarm pierced the air of the bedroom. The irregular rhythm of her heart suddenly spiked into ventricular tachycardia—a wild, uncontrolled flutter that robbed her brain of oxygen.
Clara gasped, her back arching off the mattress as she clutched at the linen over her heart. Her gray eyes dilated in sheer terror.
"Raphael..." she choked out.
"Antonio!" Raphael roared, jumping to his feet as Dr. Castiglione sprinted into the room with two emergency medical technicians carrying a crash cart.
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"Her heart is giving out!" Castiglione shouted, tearing open an ampoule of epinephrine. "The valve has ruptured! We don't have time for the Cleveland team! She needs to be opened NOW!"
***