Chapter 7 - Blood in the Water
The darkness of the shattered floodlight was our only lifeline.
As the upper catwalks erupted in a deafening flurry of suppressed automatic gunfire, tearing chunks of concrete from the walls and kicking up foul-smelling sprays of stagnant water, I threw myself across the open platform.
"Dominic! Watch out!" Marco bellowed, sweeping his weapon upward to lay down a wall of cover fire that forced the gunmen on the right gantry to duck behind the rusted steel railing.
I slid across the slick pavement, my knees slamming hard into the concrete, ignoring the flare of pain as I reached out with both hands. Clara was scrambling away from Marcus, who was staggering upright, wiping blood from his split lip, his face twisted into an expression of murderous rage.
"Get back here, you little bitch!" Marcus lunged forward, his hand clawing out to grab the hood of Clara’s yellow raincoat.
I caught his wrist mid-air with a force that nearly snapped his bones, wrenching his arm back behind his spine and slamming him hard against the side of the armored van. The metal groaned under the impact.
"Touch her again," I snarled, pressing the cold steel barrel of my Beretta directly underneath his chin, forcing his head up so he had to stare into my eyes, "and I won't wait for the police to finish what you started."
Marcus gasped for air, his eyes wide with sudden, genuine terror, the polished corporate shark completely stripped away to reveal a desperate, cornered coward. "You... you can't... the board has protocols—"
"The board can rot in hell," I hissed.
"Boss! We’ve got company!" Marco shouted over the din of approaching sirens echoing down the municipal tunnels from the surface streets above. "NYPD Major Case Squad. They must have tracked our backup ping from the townhouse!"
Sirens wailed in the distance, bouncing off the underground concrete tubes, growing louder by the second. The tactical operatives on the upper gantries realized their window had slammed shut. Without waiting for Marcus's command, they began scrambling backward up the maintenance ladders toward the street-level access grates, cutting their losses.
"Marcus Vance!" a booming voice echoed from the main tunnel entrance behind us, accompanied by the sweeping beams of heavy flashlights. "Federal and municipal police! Drop your weapons and put your hands where we can see them!"
Chief Alvarez of the Major Case Squad stepped into the dim light of the basin, flanked by half a dozen heavily armed officers in ballistic vests, their weapons drawn and trained directly on us.
I didn't lower my gun immediately. I kept it pressed against Marcus’s throat for one more agonizing second, letting him taste the absolute finality of his defeat, before I let my arm drop to my side.
I turned away from him, knelt down, and scooped Clara into my arms.
She threw her small arms around my neck, burying her face into the shoulder of my ruined, rain-soaked shirt. She was shaking now—not from the cold, but from the sudden, delayed shock of the adrenaline crash. I pulled her tight against my chest, shielding her face from the harsh glare of the police flashlights, my own throat tightening with a fierce, protective ache I hadn't felt in a decade.
"Dominic Moretti? Put the firearm down and step away from the individual," Alvarez called out, lowering his weapon slightly as he recognized my face, though his eyes darted cautiously toward Marco and the pinned CFO.
"He's all yours, Alvarez," I said, my voice dangerously calm as I stood up with Clara cradled securely in my arms. I pointed a finger at Marcus, who was now being yanked away from the van by two responding officers and slapped into heavy steel cuffs. "Check his pockets. He’s carrying the encrypted flash drive containing the forged corporate restructuring deeds and the wire transfer logs for the medical extortion ring."
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Marcus was shoved roughly against the side of the van, his expensive overcoat stained with sewer grime. As they dragged him past me toward the exit tunnel, he shot me one last venomous look through his crooked glasses.
"You think I worked alone, Dominic?" Marcus sneered, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the wet pavement. "You think cutting off my head stops the hydra? Check the European holdings by morning. You're already broke."
