Chapter 3 - The Spark in the Dark
Dominic didn't even blink as Tommy screamed the news.
"Tie the boy up and lock them in the basement," Dominic ordered his two lead enforcers.
"Wait," Dr. Adler said, looking panicked.
"Dominic, you said nobody was going to get hurt, you promised me this was purely administrative!"
Dominic pulled his pistol with terrifying speed and brought the heavy steel frame down across Dr. Adler's skull.
The doctor collapsed onto the Persian carpet, blood pooling around his gray hair.
"Idiot," Dominic muttered, wiping his weapon with a silk handkerchief.
While Dominic's guards lunged forward to grab Tommy, Elena moved with desperate maternal fury.
She snatched a heavy brass lamp from the end table and smashed it across the face of the nearest guard.
Tommy swung his baseball bat with all his weight, cracking the second guard's kneecap.
"Run, Tommy!" Elena screamed, grappling with the disoriented bodyguard.
Luca gripped the wheels of his chair, rage clawing at his chest like a trapped beast.
He looked down at his useless legs, willing them to move, commanding the nerves to fire.
A searing, white-hot spark of electrical agony ripped through his lower thighs.
It was not numbness; it was the agonizing, burning sensation of a dormant nervous system screaming back to life.
Luca let out a deep, guttural roar from the bottom of his lungs.
Using his immense upper body strength, Luca threw himself forward out of the wheelchair.
He tackled Dominic around the waist, bringing the armed underboss crashing down onto the hardwood floor.
The pistol flew from Dominic's grip, skittering across the floor toward Tommy's feet.
Tommy dove onto the weapon, snatching it up with two hands and pointing it straight at Dominic.
"Get off him, kid!" Dominic shouted, struggling beneath Luca's heavy shoulders.
Luca pinned Dominic's wrist with one hand, his face inches from his former brother's.
"Where is my daughter, Dominic?" Luca demanded, his voice trembling with volcanic fury.
Dominic spat blood onto the floor and laughed bitterly.
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"She is already on her way to the industrial meatpacking plant at Pier 44," Dominic gasped.
"And by the time you crawl out of this house, the furnaces will already be lit."
