Chapter 20 - The Spark in the Dark
"Claire, no," Vincent growled, his jaw tightening. "You take Lily. Evans goes with you."
"You need both hands to carry our daughter and fight through whatever is in the basement," I said, my voice steady, clearer than it had ever been in my life. I stepped forward and took the plastic detonator from Sal’s bloody fingers. "I’m not staying behind, Vincent. But I’m holding the trigger. If Dante gets between us and the tunnel, I collapse the house on top of him."
Vincent stared at me for three long seconds. In that gaze passed every memory of the quiet girl he had fallen in love with in that small coastal diner, and the realization that the woman standing before him now would burn the entire world to keep our child alive.
"Tunnel entrance is behind the 1945 reserve rack," Vincent commanded, turning back to the ruined doorway. "Sal, on my six. Evans, stay between Claire and me. Move!"
We spilled out into the destroyed corridor.
The grandeur of the Moretti estate was gone. Crystal chandeliers lay shattered across the scorched marble. Oil paintings of Vincent’s ancestors were shredded by bullet holes. Smoke rolled through the upper landing in thick, choking waves.
From below, Dante’s voice roared upward, frantic and furious. "Find them! Tear every wall down! If the girl is dead, I’ll have every Moretti loyalist in this city skinned alive!"
Vincent moved with terrifying speed despite carrying Lily. We swept down the back servants' stairs, bypassing the main foyer where Dante’s men were regrouping.
As we reached the heavy iron door of the wine cellar, a shadow stepped out from the darkness near the utility corridor.
A young guard—barely twenty years old, wearing the silver crest of the Valenti family—raised his weapon. "Hold it right—"
Sal didn't even slow down. He lunged forward, throwing his entire weight against the young soldier, driving both of them down into the brick floor of the cellar. The gun went off, the round ricocheting harmlessly off the vaulted ceiling.
"Go!" Sal screamed, his good hand locking around the boy’s throat in a death grip. "Get the girl out! I’ll hold the iron door!"
"Sal—" Vincent started.
"You gave me a life, Vincent!" Sal choked out, blood pouring freely from a fresh wound in his side. "Let me pay the tab! Close the door!"
Vincent hesitated for only a fraction of a heartbeat. Then, with a grim set to his mouth, he shoved Evans and me inside the subterranean cellar and slammed the thick iron door shut, throwing the mechanical locking bar into place.
Through the heavy steel, we heard the thudding of boots arriving above.
"Dante is in the main hall," I whispered, looking down at the red toggle switch beneath the plastic cover.
Vincent walked to the far wall of the cellar, gripping the iron handle disguised within the mahogany wine rack. With a heavy groan of counterweights, the entire rack swung outward, revealing a narrow, damp concrete corridor stretching into absolute blackness.
"Hit it, Claire," Vincent said quietly.
I flipped the safety cover, closed my eyes, and pressed the red button.
The earth shook. A deafening, muffled roar rumbled through the concrete ceiling above us as two tons of high-grade industrial explosive wiped out the entire central foundation of the Moretti mansion.
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Dust exploded through the seams of the iron door behind us. The ground rolled like an ocean swell, and for a terrifying second, I thought the ceiling would crush us all.
Then, silence fell.
