Chapter 6 - Awakening from the Ashes
The abandoned St. Jude’s Sanatorium rose out of the overgrown Westchester woods like a rotting tooth against the storm-swept sky.
Constructed in the late nineteenth century out of dark granite and rusted iron, the gothic asylum had sat abandoned for over thirty years, surrounded by rusted barbed wire fences and dense pine forests. It was the perfect black site—far from prying eyes, off the digital grid, and thoroughly insulated by acres of private land owned by Vance shell companies.
Our helicopter touched down three miles south in a clearing. We moved through the drenched forest on foot, eight shadows cutting through the black rain without a sound.
Through my night-vision optics, the asylum loomed ahead.
Three luxury SUVs were parked near the rear ambulance bay. Thermal imaging showed at least ten heat signatures stationed around the perimeter—mercenaries armed with semi-automatic rifles, patrolling the crumbling stone terraces.
"Target confirmed," Marco whispered into his throat mic, lying prone beside me in the wet pine needles. "We have heavy satellite communications equipment set up on the second floor. That’s where the data transfer is happening."
"Look at the main entry," I replied quietly.
Two armed guards stood beneath the stone archway, smoking cigarettes under an overhang to avoid the rain.
"Sniper team, take out the perimeter guards simultaneously," I commanded. "Silenced weapons only. We breach the east stairwell and secure the second floor before Vance realizes the trap at Pier 42 failed."
*Pfft. Pfft.*
The muffled cough of our suppressed sniper rifles sounded like snapping twigs. Both guards dropped instantly, collapsing onto the wet gravel without a sound.
"Move," I said.
We moved with lethal, surgical precision. We breached the side service entrance, slipping into the dark, mold-infested corridors of the sanitarium. The air inside was freezing, smelling of peeling lead paint, rot, and damp plaster.
Up on the second floor, a soft hum of electronic equipment broke the silence.
I signaled to Marco. We stacked up against the double wooden doors of the old administrative office.
Inside, voices were arguing.
"...I don't give a damn about the girl!" Julian Vance’s raspy, arrogant voice boomed through the rotting wood. "Just get the biometric scanner online! The clock strikes midnight in ten minutes. When the Zurich exchange opens, I want that transfer completed within sixty seconds!"
"Mr. Vance, she’s severely hypotensive," a second voice, nervous and clinically detached, replied. "Her vitals are collapsing. If I administer another stimulant to force her eyes open for the retinal scan, she could suffer cardiac arrest."
"Then let her die the second the transfer hits 'Approved'!" Vance snarled. "Slap her! Throw water on her face! Wake her the hell up!"
Hearing those words ignited something primordial inside me.
I didn't wait for a tactical countdown.
I raised my combat boot and kicked the heavy double doors off their rusted hinges with a thunderous *CRASH!*
"MORETTI!" someone screamed.
Chaos erupted in a storm of muzzle flashes and deafening gunfire.
Vance’s two personal bodyguards reacted instinctively, raising their submachine guns, but Marco and my men were faster. Controlled, double-tap bursts shredded the mercenaries before they could acquire their targets. Both men collapsed against the decaying plaster walls, painting them red.
The corrupt physician dropped to his knees behind a metal desk, screaming with his hands over his head.
In the center of the room, standing beside a portable medical gurney, was Julian Vance.
He was fifty-five, silver-haired, dressed in an expensive bespoke wool overcoat now splattered with his bodyguard's blood. In his right hand, he held a chrome revolver, aimed directly at the temple of the woman lying on the gurney.
"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" Vance screamed, his voice cracking with panicked desperation. "BACK UP, ALESSANDRO! DROP YOUR WEAPONS OR I BLOW HER BRAINS ACROSS THIS ROOM!"
My men froze, their weapons trained on Vance’s chest.
"Hold," I ordered, raising my hand.
The smoke from the gunfire drifted through the pale fluorescent lights, mixing with the rain mist blowing in through the shattered windows.
I lowered my pistol just an inch, my eyes shifting to the gurney.
My breath caught in my throat.
Lying on the gurney, swaddled in a stained hospital blanket, was Sofia.
She was gaunt, her skin paper-pale, her cheekbones sharp and hollowed by nearly two decades of captivity. Her dark hair was streaked with broad ribbons of pure white, falling in tangled strands around her fragile face. An IV line was taped to the back of her bruised, skeletal hand.
Yet, despite the decay, despite the seventeen years of stolen life, she was undeniably my sister. The curve of her nose, the elegant arch of her brow—she looked like a ghost that had stepped out of my memories.
Her eyelids flickered. Slowly, agonizingly, she opened her eyes.
Hazel. Flecked with gold.
She looked past the barrel of the revolver pressed against her skull. She looked past Vance.
She looked straight at me.
"Alessandro..." she breathed, the sound barely louder than a dying sigh.
"You're late, Moretti," Vance sneered, his finger tightening visibly on the revolver's trigger. His face was beaded with cold sweat. "How did you find this place? Isabella wouldn't have known—"
"Isabella is in my dungeon," I said, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. "And your ambush at Pier 42 was a failure. You're alone, Julian."
"I have the codes!" Vance yelled, his hand trembling. "I have your sister! You back out of this room right now, you let me take the helicopter on the roof, or she dies! You spent seventeen years crying over an empty grave—do you really want to put her in a real one tonight?"
I stopped moving. I looked Vance dead in the eyes.
"You took my sister," I said, my voice dropping into a register of terrifying calm. "You kept her in the dark. You abused her. You fathered a child upon her body while she was helpless."
Vance’s lips curled into a sick, defiant sneer. "And what a sweet, obedient little thing she was, Alessandro. If you think I regret a single second—"
He never finished the sentence.
Sofia’s frail, skeletal hand suddenly shot upward.
With the last reserve of strength in her battered body, she drove the metal tip of the IV needle deep into Julian Vance’s right eye.
Vance let out a blood-curdling screech of agony, his head snapping back as blinding pain shattered his focus. His revolver fired wildly into the ceiling, showering plaster dust across the room.
Before Vance could recover, I closed the distance between us in a single heartbeat.
I grabbed his gun wrist, twisting it until the bones snapped with a wet, splintering crack. The revolver clattered harmlessly to the floor. With my other hand, I seized Vance by the throat and slammed him backward onto the concrete floor, pressing the muzzle of my .45 directly between his eyes.
"Alessandro! Wait!" Vance gasped, choking on his own blood, clutching his ruined eye. "We can make a deal! The money—two hundred and fifty million—we split it! We run the city together!"
I didn't answer him.
I looked down at the pathetic, groveling parasite who had destroyed my family from the shadows.
"This is for seventeen years," I whispered.
*BANG.*
The gunshot echoed through the abandoned asylum, drowning out the roar of the storm outside.
Vance’s body went limp, his head lolling sideways onto the cold stone.
Silence rushed back into the room, broken only by the ragged, wheezing gasps of the woman on the gurney.
I dropped the empty shell casing from my mind and turned instantly to Sofia. I fell to my knees beside the bed, holstering my weapon, my hands trembling violently as I reached out to touch her face.
Her skin was ice-cold, but she was breathing.
"Sofia," I choked out, tears blinding my vision. "Sofia, look at me. I'm here. It's Alessandro. I'm here."
She turned her head toward me, a weak, trembling smile touching her pale lips. She raised a frail, bruised hand and gently rested her fingertips against my cheek, tracing the line of my jaw just like she used to do when we were children.
"Mister Giant..." she whispered, her voice cracking with pure, unadulterated love. "You came."
"I came," I wept, burying my face against her trembling hand. "I'm so sorry, Sofia. God forgive me, I'm so sorry it took me so long."
"You found the button," she breathed, her hazel eyes shining with tears. "Where is she? Where is my baby?"
"She's safe," I promised her, kissing her cold forehead. "Lily is safe at home. She's waiting for you."
May you like
Sofia closed her eyes, letting out a long, shuddering breath of profound relief. "Take me home, brother. Please. Take me home."
***
