Chapter 5 - The Web of Deceit
"Out! Now!" Luca barked, grabbing Olivia by the waist and yanking her back from the corpse just as a deafening alarm began to blare throughout the entire building.
Red emergency strobe lights flashed against the glass walls, casting eerie, blood-colored shadows across the office.
"Marco!" Luca yelled into his earpiece as he pulled a stunned, trembling Olivia into the hallway. "We’ve been set up! The floor is hot!"
"Boss! Security teams are coming up the express elevators!" Marco’s voice crackled through the earbud. "They aren't private security—they’re tactical units wearing unmarked gear!"
"Get the SUV around to the loading dock bay three!" Luca ordered.
He didn't wait for a response. He grabbed Olivia's hand, his strong fingers clamping tightly around hers, and dragged her down the secondary maintenance hallway toward the fire stairs.
Olivia’s mind was spinning into total chaos. The image of the dead executive, the blood on the glass, the flashing red lights—it was all consuming her sanity. "That was Daniel’s boss," she sobbed as they sprinted down the concrete staircase. "Mr. Vance... that was his boss!"
"Your brother didn't kill him," Luca said over his shoulder, his boots crashing against the metal stairs as they descended rapidly. "The Vanguard executed him because Vance let Daniel access the master ledger."
"What ledger?!" Olivia cried, struggling to keep her footing in her heels. "What is everybody looking for?!"
"Account 99!" Luca shouted back. They reached the thirty-fifth floor landing when the heavy steel door above them was kicked open with a loud metallic crash.
"Down there! Shoot!" a voice barked from above.
Suppressor fire clicked through the stairwell. Dust and concrete chips exploded off the wall inches above Luca’s head.
Luca didn't hesitate. He pulled his heavy weapon from beneath his coat, spun around, and fired four rapid shots up the center of the stairwell shaft. Screams echoed from above followed by the heavy thud of a body tumbling down the steps.
"Keep moving!" Luca yelled, pulling Olivia through the thirty-fourth-floor fire door and locking the heavy bar behind them.
They burst into a long, quiet mechanical corridor filled with thick yellow pipes, hums of electrical generators, and heavy steam vents.
Luca pushed her behind a giant steel air compressor, stepping out into the center of the corridor with his weapon raised, his breath coming in ragged gasps as the blood from his side began to soak through his jacket.
"Luca..." Olivia whispered, pointing at his waist. "You're bleeding through."
"I'm fine," he growled, though his face was gray with exhaustion. He leaned his head against the cold steel pipe, taking two deep breaths to steady himself.
"You're not fine!" she said, stepping out from behind the compressor and grabbing his bloodied jacket. "You're going to bleed to death in a mechanical room because of my family!"
Luca looked down at her. Despite the gunfire, despite the dead body, despite the absolute nightmare her life had become in the span of six hours, she wasn't looking at him with fear anymore. She was looking at him with fierce, desperate concern.
"Why do you care?" Luca asked softly, his gray eyes searching hers in the dim amber light of the mechanical room. "I'm a crime boss, Olivia. Your aunt called me a monster. Half the city thinks I'm the devil."
"You took a bullet for me on 5th Avenue," Olivia whispered, her eyes shining with tears. "And you didn't leave me behind when you could have. You aren't the devil, Luca."
A faint, soft expression crossed Luca’s hard face. He raised his hand, his thumb gently brushing a streak of drywall dust off her cheek. "If we get out of this alive, Olivia... I'm going to take you somewhere where nobody shoots at us."
Before she could answer, the heavy steel door at the end of the mechanical corridor burst open.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the blinding white light of the hallway behind him, was a tall man wearing a dark tactical trench coat. In his right hand, he held a sleek, silenced submachine gun.
In his left hand, he held a phone pressed to his ear.
"I found them," the man said into the phone, his voice cold and devoid of emotion. He looked at Luca, then turned his gaze to Olivia. "The girl is here. And Moretti is wounded."
Luca raised his gun, but before he could pull the trigger, the man held up his phone, switching it to speaker mode.
A voice echoed through the cold mechanical room—a voice that made Olivia’s entire body go numb.
"Olivia?"
May you like
It was Daniel.
"Olivia, if you can hear me... tell Moretti to give them the key," Daniel sobbed over the speaker, his voice broken and terrified. "They have Aunt Helen, Olivia! They're going to kill her if you don't give them Account 99!"
