Chapter 5 - Fire in the Corridor
The heavy .45 caliber rounds blew massive, jagged holes through the cheap plywood door. A sharp, agonized shriek echoed from the corridor as one of the Lucian hitters took a heavy slug through the collarbone, sending him spinning into the peeling wallpaper.
Dominic didn't wait for them to return fire. He dropped to his stomach instantly.
A split second later, a storm of lead ripped through the wall. Sheetrock exploded into white chalky clouds. Wood splintered into lethal needles as two submachine guns emptied full thirty-round magazines through the drywall, shredding the room at waist height. The mirror above the dresser shattered into a thousand glittering shards, raining down across the floor.
Inside the bathroom, Sadi curled into a tight ball inside the iron tub, her hands clamped over her ears, tears streaming down her face as drywall dust settled over her hair like snow.
The deafening chatter of the automatic weapons ceased, replaced by the mechanical clatter of empty magazines dropping onto the wet hallway floor.
*Click-clack.* The sound of fresh magazines seating home.
Dominic counted the seconds. *One. Two.*
He rose like an uncoiling spring, kicked what was left of the door completely off its bottom hinge, and stepped out into the smoke-choked hallway.
Two hitmen in black tactical gear were standing over Ray’s corpse, their fingers reaching for the charging handles of their weapons. They never touched them. Dominic fired twice. Double-tap. The first man took a .45 round between the eyes, his skull snapping back as his body folded instantly. Dominic shifted his sight two inches to the right and squeezed the trigger again. The second man took a heavy slug straight through the throat, choking on his own blood as he dropped his weapon and crashed into the wall.
Dominic stepped over their bodies, his eyes scanning the narrow corridor.
At the far end of the hallway, by the emergency fire exit, stood the old janitor.
The frail old man wasn't cowering. He was standing upright, holding a sawn-off double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun he had pulled from the canvas dirty-laundry cart beside him.
The janitor racked the slide with a terrifying, smooth efficiency that no seventy-year-old motel worker possessed. He leveled the twin barrels past Dominic’s shoulder toward the stairwell behind him.
*BOOM!*
The concussive roar of the shotgun inside the narrow hallway was deafening. A third Lucian gunman who had just peeked around the stairwell doorframe was blown backward down the concrete steps in a cloud of red mist and shredded vest fibers.
Dominic lowered his Colt, staring at the old man through the haze of gunsmoke.
“I told you, Mr. Russo,” the janitor said, his voice completely devoid of the shaky tremor he had used twenty minutes ago. His cataracts seemed entirely irrelevant as his sharp, cold eyes locked onto Dominic’s. “I told you not to open that door. Now look at my damn floor. It’s ruined.”
“Who the hell are you?” Dominic growled, stepping over Ray’s body.
“I’m Frankie’s uncle, you arrogant son of a bitch,” the old man spat, cracking the shotgun open and slipping two fresh red shells into the smoking chambers with practiced ease. “Frankie is dead. Paulie’s boys put him in an industrial trash compactor two hours ago behind the meatpacking plant. But before they broke his legs, he gave me the key to his locker at the bus depot. That’s where the address is. That’s where they’re holding your little girl.”
The bathroom door creaked open. Sadi emerged through the drifting chalk dust, the Smith & Wesson gripped in her trembling hands. When she saw the carnage in the hallway, she choked back a gasp, but her eyes hardened the second she saw the old man.
“Silvio?” she whispered.
“Get your coat, girl,” Silvio said roughly. “The whole damn syndicate is sitting downstairs in the alley. Paulie brought twenty men. They’re coming up the fire escape.”
Dominic grabbed Ray’s discarded Glock from the floor, along with two magazines from the dead hitter’s tactical vest, and shoved them into Sadi’s hands.
“You know how to use this?” Dominic asked, his voice low and deadly.
Sadi racked the slide with a cold, metallic snap that answered the question for him. “I was married to you, wasn't I?”
Dominic’s jaw set into iron. “We go down through the laundry chute at the end of the hall. It dumps directly into the basement boiler room. There’s a delivery tunnel that leads to the storm drain on 4th Street.”
“You know this place?” Silvio asked, raising a gray eyebrow.
May you like
Dominic looked at the blood spreading across the carpet. “I built this neighborhood, old man. Now let’s go get my daughter.”
***
