"Get down!" Aldrich roared, reacting instantly.
He pulled Anel under his arm, spinning around to shield the boy with his own body while pulling his pistol from his shoulder holster in one fluid, practiced motion.
At the end of the vault corridor, the elevator doors had been forced open.
Four men in black tactical gear burst into the hallway, firing silenced automatic rifles. Marco returned fire from behind a concrete pillar, the deafening blasts of his heavy handgun echoing off the granite walls like thunder.
"It's Roland's loyalists!" Marco shouted over the roar of gunfire, ducking as a hail of bullets chipped sparks off the stone. "They ambushed the street detail! They know he's finished if that ledger leaves the vault!"
Riona dropped to the floor, grabbing the black ledger and the digital drive, shoving them deep inside her coat pocket. "Where do we go?!"
"Behind the vault door!" Aldrich commanded, grabbing her arm and pulling her inside the thick steel alcove of Vault Safe #408.
The steel vault door was six inches thick—bulletproof and bombproof. Aldrich shoved Riona and Anel into the deep recess behind the frame, standing in the opening himself, firing three precise shots down the hallway.
A mercenary dropped to the floor; another ducked behind a metal deposit desk.
"Aldrich! There's an emergency fire staircase behind the main vault mechanism!" Riona shouted, pointing to a heavy steel service door near the back wall, marked with a red emergency latch. "Cosmo showed me the blueprint years ago when he bought the bank shares!"
"Can you open it?!" Aldrich asked, firing two more suppressing rounds down the corridor.
"It needs an override key!" Riona searched the back wall frantically, spotting a small keyhole beneath a glass casing. "The fountain pen! The steel tip!"
Riona pulled the antique silver pen from her pocket, jammed the narrow steel tip directly into the keyhole, and twisted it with all her strength.
A loud mechanical clunk echoed through the wall, and the heavy emergency service door popped open by an inch, revealing a dark, concrete staircase leading upward toward the street level.
"Marco! Fall back to the service stair!" Aldrich barked into his shoulder radio.
Marco fired his remaining rounds, scrambling down the hallway on his knees, sliding into the vault just as a salvo of bullets tore through the metal desk behind him.
"Go! Go!" Marco yelled, clutching a bleeding shoulder wound. "I'll lock the vault door behind us!"
Aldrich grabbed Anel into his left arm, holding his gun in his right, while Riona pushed open the emergency door. They surged into the narrow stairwell, Marco slamming the heavy service door shut behind them, throwing the mechanical bolt into place.
The thick concrete muffled the sound of gunfire instantly, leaving only the sound of their heavy breathing and rapid footsteps echoing up the dark stairs.
They climbed four flights of stairs, bursting through an unmarked service exit that opened into a quiet, snow-covered alleyway behind St. Jacques Street.
Waiting in the alley was a non-descript gray van, its engine idling, snow dusting its roof. The driver’s side window rolled down, revealing a trusted senior captain named Bruno—one of Cosmo's oldest friends.
"Get in!" Bruno yelled, waving them forward. "The police are three blocks away! We have to move now!"
Aldrich shoved Riona and Anel into the back sliding door, piling in right behind them as Bruno slammed his foot onto the gas pedal, the van spinning its tires on the icy asphalt before plunging into the afternoon traffic of Montreal.
Inside the quiet rear of the van, Riona pulled Anel tight against her chest, her hands trembling uncontrollably.
Anel looked up at her, his face pale, but his gray-green eyes calm. "Mama? Did we win?"
May you like
Riona looked at the black ledger sitting safely on her lap, then turned her head to look at Aldrich. He was sitting across from her, breathing heavily, bleeding slightly from a line cut along his cheek by flying glass, his eyes locked on her with an expression of fierce, absolute protection.
"Yes, sweetie," Riona whispered, tears spilling over her lashes as she reached out to wipe a drop of blood from Aldrich’s jaw. "We won."
