Chapter 10 - The Ash Settles
The winter air was freezing as Elias kicked open the emergency fire escape access on the roof. The city below was bathed in the red and blue flashing lights of a massive federal raid. L’Artisan Gourmand was surrounded. Smoke billowed from the lower floors, carrying the scent of burning velvet, shattered luxury, and cordite.
Silas was waiting on the roof next to a grappling winch line that extended to the adjacent building. He tossed Elias a heavy, nondescript duffel bag.
"Two million in untraceable bearer bonds," Silas grinned, wiping soot from his face. "Severance pay. The feds are too busy arresting senators to look up here. Let's move."
Elias strapped the bag to his back and secured Elara into a climbing harness, attaching her firmly to his chest. He looked down at her. Her face was smeared with ash, reminiscent of the day they first walked into this nightmare. But this time, she wasn't crying. She looked at him with absolute trust.
"Hold on tight, El," Elias whispered.
He clipped onto the line and leapt off the edge of the building. The freezing wind roared in his ears as they slid across the dark chasm between the skyscrapers, leaving the burning empire of L’Artisan Gourmand behind them.
Hours later, they sat in the back of a blacked-out SUV driving out of the city limits. The heater was blasting, finally thawing the cold that had lived in Elias’s bones for years. Elara was asleep in the backseat, wrapped in a thick, warm blanket.
Elias watched the city skyline shrink in the rearview mirror. He pulled a small, silver lighter from his pocket—Genevieve’s lighter. He rolled the window down, tossing the lighter out into the snowbank on the side of the highway.
He had walked into the deli as a beggar. He was leaving it as a king.
The nightmare was over. The ghosts of his parents could finally rest. As the sun began to rise, casting a brilliant, warm golden light over the snow-covered mountains ahead, Elias finally allowed himself to take a deep breath.
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It wasn't a fairy tale. It was brutal, bloody, and scarred him for life. But as he looked at his sister sleeping peacefully, free from the cage, he knew he would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
They drove into the sunrise, disappearing completely from the world that tried to break them.
