Chapter 2 - The Ambush in the Rain
The explosive crash of shattering glass echoed deafeningly through the small diner.
A sleek, black canister rolled across the cheap linoleum floor, hissing violently.
"Tear gas!" Leo roared, diving aggressively over the booth to shield Gabriel with his massive body.
Thick, blinding white smoke instantly flooded the room, burning Norah’s eyes and throat like battery acid.
Automatic gunfire erupted from the street outside, tearing through the wooden booths and shredding the pie case into a million pieces.
Norah dropped to the floor, covering her head as bullets whizzed terrifyingly close above her.
Gabriel’s men returned fire blindly through the smoke, their weapons deafening in the confined space.
"Get the boss to the back exit!" Leo yelled, firing his heavy pistol toward the shattered front window.
A heavily armored mercenary wearing a tactical gas mask burst through the ruined doorway.
He raised a submachine gun, aiming directly at the booth where Gabriel had been sitting seconds before.
Before the mercenary could pull the trigger, Gabriel lunged out from under the table.
He moved with a sudden, lethal speed that completely belied his starving, weakened state.
Gabriel drove a jagged shard of a broken coffee mug directly into the vulnerable gap in the mercenary’s body armor, right below the collarbone.
The man gurgled and collapsed, dropping his weapon.
Gabriel snatched the submachine gun from the floor and fired a devastating burst into the street, forcing the remaining attackers back.
"Move!" Gabriel shouted, grabbing Norah roughly by the arm and hauling her to her feet.
"Why are you taking me?" Norah coughed violently, struggling to breathe through the toxic smoke.
"Because if you stay here, they will torture you to find out what you fed me," Gabriel grunted, pulling her toward the swinging kitchen doors.
They sprinted through the kitchen, Benny cowering silently beneath the dish pit, completely paralyzed by fear.
Gabriel kicked the heavy metal back door open and dragged Norah out into the freezing, pouring rain.
The alleyway was pitch black and reeked strongly of garbage.
"Where are the SUVs?" Gabriel barked into a small radio clipped to his collar.
"The tires are blown, boss," a frantic voice crackled back over the comms.
"They boxed us in completely."
Gabriel cursed violently, scanning the dark alley for an escape route.
He spotted a rusted fire escape clinging to the side of a decaying brick tenement building.
"Climb," he ordered Norah, practically shoving her toward the metal ladder.
Norah didn't hesitate. She scrambled up the slippery, rusted rungs, completely ignoring the painful scrape of metal against her palms.
Gabriel followed closely behind her, moving with desperate, agonizing slowness.
His body was finally rebelling against the sudden adrenaline rush, the physical toll of a week without food crashing down on him.
They reached the flat, tar-covered roof just as a powerful spotlight from the street below swept across the brick wall.
"They are coming up the fire escape!" Leo yelled from the alley below, unleashing another deafening volley of gunfire.
Gabriel collapsed onto the wet roof, completely exhausted, clutching his chest as he gasped for air.
Norah looked around frantically for a way out.
The gap between their roof and the neighboring building was at least six feet wide.
"We have to jump," Norah yelled over the roaring rain.
Gabriel looked at the terrifying drop and let out a harsh, bloody laugh.
"I can't make that jump, Norah."
"My legs are completely gone."
He shoved the submachine gun toward her.
"Take this and go."
"I will hold them off here."
Norah stared at the ruthless mafia boss, completely shocked that he was offering his own life to save a random waitress.
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Before she could answer, a dark figure dropped silently from a higher water tower directly behind them.
"Nobody is jumping anywhere tonight, Gabriel," a smooth, chilling voice said.
