Chapter 5 - Emergency Extraction
Before I could absorb the tidal wave of truth, the red emergency beacon above the bunker door flashed violently.
Silent alarm.
Someone had bypassed the auxiliary generators in the basement. They were setting thermal charges directly above the vault's air intake vents.
"They have blueprints," I muttered, my tactical instincts overriding my emotional shock. "Valenti couldn't get these blueprints unless someone on my executive council handed them over."
Marco. Dante. Uncle Silvio.
One of my three closest confidants had sold out my sanctuary.
"We have to move," I said, slinging an M4 carbine from the bunker's weapons rack over my shoulder and strapping two extra magazine pouches to my belt.
"Where?" Elena gasped, grabbing the boys' coats. "The house is surrounded!"
"My father built a drainage egress during the Prohibition era," I said, kicking open a rusted hatch near the corner of the vault floor. "It empties into the storm canals three miles south toward the rail yards. It's dark, it's wet, and it smells like hell."
I knelt before the four boys.
They looked at me with varying degrees of curiosity and fear. Leo had tears in his eyes. Nico was stoic. Lucas was chewing on his lower lip.
And Mateo stepped forward, looking straight into my eyes.
"Are you our papa?" Mateo asked softly.
The word struck me harder than any bullet I had ever taken. I had killed men without blinking. I had buried rivals and commanded armies of killers. But that single four-letter word broke down every wall I had constructed around my blackened soul.
"I am," I said, my voice thick and raw. "And I promise you, as long as I draw breath, no one will ever hurt you again."
I picked up Leo and Lucas under each arm. Elena took Nico. Mateo grabbed the belt loop of my tactical pants, holding on with a grip that defied his small size.
"Move," I commanded.
May you like
We dropped into the darkness of the subterranean tunnels just as the first heavy explosion shattered the vault ceiling above us.
***