Chapter 29 - Hostage on the Precipice
Maya didn't try to pull away from the gun; she leaned *into* it.
Using every ounce of strength remaining in her exhausted, shivering body, Maya brought her left combat-boot heel down with brutal force directly onto the bridge of Marcone’s polished Italian leather shoe, while simultaneously throwing her head backward into his broken nose.
The impact produced a sickening crack.
Marcone howled in agony, his head snapping back, his arm loosening around her neck for a fraction of a second as his aim went wild.
In that exact fraction of a second, Dante moved.
He drew his sidearm from his hip in a blur of motion that defied human reaction time. Two shots roared from the barrel before Marcone could even level his gun.
*Crack. Crack.*
Both rounds struck Marcone’s right shoulder and wrist, obliterating the bones and sending the chrome revolver flying across the concrete floor, spinning into the dark.
Marcone shrieked, collapsing against the brick wall, clutching his shattered arm as bright arterial blood sprayed across the peeling paint.
Maya tumbled forward onto her hands and knees, gasping for air, her chest heaving as she pulled the freezing air into her bruised lungs.
Before her knees could hit the freezing concrete, strong, heavy arms caught her.
Dante dropped to his knees, catching her by the shoulders, pulling her fiercely against his chest. His heavy tactical vest was cold and smelled of gunpowder, but the arms wrapping around her were warm, solid, and unbreakable.
"Maya," Dante breathed, his voice cracking—a sound so human, so raw, that it startled Marcus and the men standing guard. "Maya, look at me."
Maya buried her face into the curve of his neck, her hands gripping the fabric of his tactical sweater, trembling so violently she could barely speak. Tears finally broke through her defenses, hot and scalding against his skin.
"Sofia..." she sobbed, clutching him. "Dante, is Sofia safe? Did she... did she make it?"
Dante pulled back slightly, his large, scarred hand coming up to gently, reverently cradle the side of her bruised face. He wiped away the blood and the tears with his thumb, his dark eyes filled with an emotion so deep it threatened to swallow them both.
"She is safe," Dante whispered, his voice trembling with fierce reverence. "She is at the house. And Maya... she spoke. She spoke because of you."
A broken, beautiful laugh ripped through Maya's sobs. "She spoke?"
"She told me where to find you," Dante said softly. "She saved your life, just like you saved hers."
Behind them, a wet, choking laugh echoed from the corner of the vault.
Salvatore Marcone was slumped against the wall, his face covered in blood, his teeth stained red as he spat onto the floor. Despite the fatal wounds bleeding him dry, a grotesque, venomous grin stretched across his dying face.
"How touching..." Marcone wheezed, blood bubbling on his lips. "The Devil found a little lamb to play house with."
Dante’s warmth vanished in an instant.
He slowly rose to his feet, turning toward Marcone. The tenderness in his posture was replaced by an aura of death so heavy that the temperature in the freezing vault seemed to drop another ten degrees.
"You should have died six months ago, Marcone," Dante said, stepping slowly toward the dying mobster, drawing a combat knife from his chest rig.
"You think... you think this was just me, Blackwood?" Marcone spat, coughing violently, a sickening rattle building in his chest. "You think I could pull off an RPG strike on the Queensboro bridge without clearance?"
Dante stopped. His eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
Marcone’s bloody grin widened into a horrifying rictus of malice. "The Commission... the Five Families... they agreed to the hit, Dante. They decided the Blackwood bloodline ends with you and your mute brat. And right now... while you're down here playing hero for a waitress..."
Marcone reached into his blood-soaked coat with his left, uninjured hand, pulling out a small, blinking remote transmitter.
May you like
"The second team isn't here, Blackwood," Marcone whispered with his dying breath. "They're at your gates."
***
