Chapter 9 - The Trial by Fire
Elena held Luca’s head in her lap, her hands pressed desperately against the wound in his side.
The blood was warm, slick, and pumping with a rhythm that terrified her. Every breath he took was a ragged, bubbling gasp that tore through his chest.
"Stay with me," she pleaded, tearing the sleeve of her shirt with her teeth to create a makeshift compress. "Look at me, Luca! Look at my eyes!"
Luca looked up at her. The terrifying mob boss, the man who had commanded armies in Manhattan, was gone. In his eyes was only the raw, vulnerable soul of the boy who had lost his mother in these same hills.
"Elena..." he whispered, his lips flecked with red. "The tunnel... Silvio..."
"Forget Silvio!" she cried, pressing down on the wound with all her strength, ignoring the agony it caused him. "You're bleeding out! Nico is down! I have to get you to the surface!"
"No," a voice croaked from the shadows.
Arthur Bell stepped forward. His suit was ruined, covered in dust and blood, his face streaked with tears and shame. He fell to his knees beside them, pulling a tactical medical kit from the belt of one of the fallen gunmen.
"Arthur, get away from him!" Elena snarled, reaching for her Glock with one bloody hand. "I swear to God I will kill you where you sit!"
"Shoot me if you want," Arthur said, his hands shaking violently as he tore open a package of clotting powder and pressure bandages. "Shoot me after. But if you don't pack that wound with Celox in the next forty seconds, his liver will collapse and he will be dead before you reach the church doors."
Elena stared at the silver-haired lawyer, the hatred burning in her chest warring with the cold, brutal truth of his words. She slowly lowered the gun. "Do it."
Arthur worked with desperate, frantic efficiency. He poured the hemostatic granules directly into the wound, causing Luca to arch his back and groan in agony, his teeth clenched so hard they cracked. Arthur pressed the thick military trauma bandage over the site, wrapping the elastic straps tightly around Luca’s torso.
"The bleeding is contained for now," Arthur gasped, rocking back on his heels, his hands covered in Luca’s blood. "He needs a surgeon. A real trauma team."
"Silvio took the tunnel," Luca whispered, his hand reaching up, his bloody fingers curling around Elena’s wrist with surprising strength. "The tunnel... leads to the ravine... the old watchtower. He has... a helicopter pad on the ridge."
Luca coughed, a spasm of pain racking his frame.
"If he reaches... the helicopter... he leaves the country. The contracts... the banks... it won't matter. He will kill Arthur’s son. He will... come back for you."
Luca looked into her eyes, his vision beginning to blur with shock.
"Elena... finish it."
Elena looked down at him. The man who had mocked her in a restaurant forty-eight hours ago had taken a bullet meant to secure her survival. He had brought her back to her homeland, not as a pawn, but to give her back the crown that had been stolen from her family.
She leaned down, her lips brushing against his forehead, whispering in the dialect of his mother: *"I will finish it, Luca. Rest. I am coming back for you."*
She looked up at Arthur. "Keep him alive. If he stops breathing before I come back, there is nowhere on this earth you can hide from me."
Arthur nodded, weeping quietly, his hands pressing down on Luca’s chest.
Elena picked up her Glock, checked the magazine—six rounds remaining—and grabbed a tactical flashlight from the floor. She picked up the bronze cylinder containing the Bourbon deeds, tucked it securely into the inner pocket of her shearling jacket, and stepped into the dark opening of the escape tunnel.
The tunnel was narrow, damp, and steep, ascending through the heart of the limestone ridge. The smell of burning aviation fuel drifted down the shaft, mixed with the damp mountain air.
Elena moved with a cold, terrifying purpose. The frightened girl who had served wine with downcast eyes was gone, buried beneath the dust of the crypt. In her place stood Elena Moretti, daughter of the mountain, heir to the blood of San Vito.
She emerged through a rusted iron door into the ruins of the medieval watchtower.
The rain had stopped. Dawn was breaking over the Mediterranean, painting the sky in violent streaks of orange, violet, and blood red. On the concrete terrace fifty yards away, the rotors of a black Agusta helicopter were beginning to turn, whipping the tall mountain grass into a frenzy.
Silvio Valenti was running toward the aircraft, hunched against the downdraft, clutching a leather briefcase to his chest.
"Silvio!" Elena’s voice cut through the whine of the turbines like a whip.
The old man stopped. He turned slowly, his black coat flapping wildly in the wind. When he saw her standing in the ruined stone archway, covered in mud and blood, holding a weapon with both hands, his face twisted into an expression of utter, disbelieving horror.
"You?" he screamed over the roar of the engines. "You're dead! You're all dead!"
He reached into his coat, drawing a chrome-plated revolver.
Elena did not shout a warning. She did not quote scripture. She did not demand his surrender.
She raised the Glock, aligned the sights with the center of his chest, and pulled the trigger.
*Bang. Bang. Bang.*
Three rounds struck Silvio Valenti in rapid succession.
The old man staggered backward, his revolver flying from his fingers, clattering across the wet concrete. He looked down at his chest, where three dark blossoms of crimson were rapidly expanding across his white silk shirt.
He looked up at Elena, his mouth opening, but only a wet, choking gasp emerged.
He stumbled backward, off the edge of the helipad, and tumbled into the sheer, three-hundred-foot abyss of the ravine below.
The helicopter pilot, seeing his employer disappear into the gorge, immediately pulled pitch. The aircraft lifted off the pad, banking sharply toward the sea, leaving Elena standing alone atop the mountain.
The morning sun broke over the horizon, flooding the limestone cliffs of San Vito in brilliant, golden light.
Elena stood on the edge of the cliff, the sea wind whipping her hair, her chest rising and falling with deep, clean breaths. She reached into her pocket, felt the cold weight of the bronze cylinder, and then turned back toward the dark entrance of the tunnel.
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"I'm coming, Luca," she said softly to the wind. "I'm coming home."
***