Chapter 8 - The Devil You Know
Marco lowered the heavy sniper rifle, completely exposed on the catwalk as the Russian mercenaries scrambled frantically for cover.
I stared up at him in absolute shock, unable to comprehend why the man who just betrayed me was now saving my life.
Marco shouted down loudly to Ivan, claiming that Vincent Moretti belonged to him, and nobody else was allowed to claim the kill.
The Russian thugs immediately opened fire on the crane, sending a terrifying shower of sparks and hot metal raining down onto the dock.
I used the chaotic distraction to grab Elena and my daughter, dragging them desperately toward a small, motorized speedboat tied to the pier.
I knew Marco wasn't rescuing me out of sudden loyalty; he simply wanted to secure the empire for himself without Russian interference.
We leaped into the boat, and I frantically hot-wired the ignition using criminal skills I hadn't needed since my youth.
The engine roared to life just as Marco fired another precision shot, dropping a Russian thug who was rushing our position.
I threw the boat aggressively into reverse, tearing away from the pier and speeding out into the dark, freezing waters of the Hudson River.
Bullets skipped violently across the water behind us, but the thick, rolling fog quickly swallowed our small vessel entirely.
We were finally safe from the immediate gunfire, but Elena's medical condition was rapidly deteriorating in the freezing wind.
She was violently shivering on the deck, her lips turning a terrifying, sickly shade of pale blue.
The little girl huddled closely against her mother, wrapping her small arms around Elena in a desperate attempt to keep her warm.
I navigated the boat efficiently toward a secluded cove I owned in New Jersey, a property strictly off the official family books.
The property featured a fully stocked medical bunker designed precisely for emergencies the public hospitals couldn't know about.
We arrived at the private dock twenty minutes later, and I carried Elena up the muddy embankment to the hidden steel door.
I punched in the complex biometric code, rushing her inside and placing her immediately on a state-of-the-art medical bed.
I connected her to the oxygen machines and started a warm saline IV to stabilize her crashing core temperature.
For the next three agonizing hours, I sat beside her, holding her cold hand and praying to a God I had long ignored.
My daughter sat quietly on my lap, her gray-green eyes watching her mother with an intensity that broke my heart.
Around dawn, color finally began to return to Elena's cheeks, and her breathing steadied into a peaceful, rhythmic pattern.
She opened her eyes slowly, looking around the bunker before her gaze finally settled softly on me.
She thanked me gently for saving them, her voice barely more than a soft, exhausted whisper in the quiet room.
I kissed her forehead tenderly, promising her that I was going to tear down my entire empire to keep them safe permanently.
Just as the tension finally left my tired shoulders, the heavy steel door of the bunker began to hiss open loudly.
I spun around instantly, grabbing a shotgun from the emergency rack on the wall and aiming it squarely at the entrance.
Marco stepped slowly into the room, holding his hands up high in a gesture of total, unarmed surrender.
He looked at me with a genuinely mournful expression, tossing his remaining weapons safely onto the concrete floor.
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"I am truly sorry, Vincent," Marco whispered, pointing a trembling finger toward my sleeping daughter.
"But Dominic didn't just steal money from the Russians, he stole their biological weapon, and your daughter is the only one carrying it."
