Chapter 5 - The Emergency Exit
"The service elevator shaft," Luca said, dropping to his knees beside the master bathroom vanity and pressing a hidden panel in the mahogany baseboard. "It’s an old maintenance drop used during the penthouse construction. It leads straight down to the basement loading dock, past the digital lockouts."
"Will it hold your weight?" I asked, shining my penlight down the dark, vertical drop where a greasy cable and a narrow metal ladder descended into the shadows.
"It has to," Gabriel grunted, standing fully upright now, his face pale as paper but his shoulders squared with terrifying authority. He reached into the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a heavy, matte-black Sig Sauer pistol, checking the magazine with a practiced click. "Because if we take the front door, Vincent’s cleanup crew will already be waiting in the lobby."
Luca dropped down first, testing the rungs of the ladder before looking back up. "Clear!"
I turned to Gabriel, reaching into my medical bag to hand him a sealed packet of broad-spectrum antibiotics and a sterile bandage for his back. "Take these. If that infection spreads before we reach your mother, you’ll be dead before you hit the lobby, regardless of what your cousin does."
Gabriel took the packet from my hand, his fingers brushing mine. For a moment, the dangerous mafia boss vanished, replaced by a man who had just looked into the abyss of his own family’s betrayal.
"If we survive this night," Gabriel said quietly, his dark eyes locked onto mine, "I want to know why a Cook County trauma nurse was willing to risk her life for a man like me."
"Save your breath for the climb," I replied, stepping up to the edge of the dark shaft. "You can ask me when we get to Evanston."
We slipped into the dark vertical drop one by one, the heavy steel door sealing shut above us as the penthouse went entirely silent.
Twenty minutes later, we emerged into the freezing concrete expanse of the basement garage just as a sleek black sedan pulled away from the private loading bay. In the passenger seat, illuminated briefly by the overhead fluorescent lights, Vincent Moretti was on his phone, signing a digital document on an illuminated tablet.
May you like
Gabriel raised his pistol, tracking the taillights through the dim garage, his thumb resting lightly on the safety.
"Not yet," Gabriel whispered, lowering the barrel an inch as the sedan vanished into the Chicago night. "Let him think he’s won. We’re going to pay a late-night visit to my mother."
