Chapter 35 - Infiltration in Red Velvet
The standoff hung by a thread thinner than spider’s silk.
The infant’s cries echoed off the corrugated metal ceiling, high and frantic. Rain dripped through the rusted vents, hissing as it struck the hot barrels of spent assault rifles.
Clara stood frozen on the catwalk ten feet above the dry-dock floor. Her heart slammed against her ribs like a caged beast, but her tactical training—beaten into her by survival, by Julian, by the blood in her veins—began to ice over her terror.
She noticed the details.
Luciano’s left hand, which held the detonator, was trembling. Not from fear, but from the severe neurological tremors of the degenerative disease eating his nervous system. His weight was shifted entirely onto his right leg; the old wound from thirty years ago had never truly healed.
And between the catwalk where she stood and the steel table holding the bassinet hung a heavy industrial pulley cable, slick with grease and counterbalanced by a three-ton iron casting block suspended twenty feet in the air.
Clara caught Julian’s eye across the hall.
A silent language passed between them—a look forged in fire and midnight vows. Julian saw her glance upward at the counterweight’s release latch. He gave the faintest, almost imperceptible nod of his head.
"Luciano," Julian spoke up, stepping deliberately into the center of the hall, his hands raised slightly from his weapon to draw the old monster’s gaze. "You want an eye for an eye? You want the Valente bloodline extinguished? Then look at me."
Luciano’s revolver drifted an inch away from the bassinet, locking onto Julian’s chest. "The loyal lapdog speaks. Tell me, boy, did you really think you were anything more than a glorified bodyguard to my treacherous wife?"
"I am the man who controls the five syndicates from here to Marseille," Julian said, his voice calm, magnetic, dripping with contempt. "You think you can rebuild an empire from a hospital bed? The moment you put a bullet in that child, your mercenaries will realize you have no leverage. You become an old man with a suitcase of useless codes. They will cut your throat for the bounty on your head before you reach the harbor."
Behind Luciano, two of his Eastern European contractors shifted uncomfortably, exchanging uneasy glances. Julian’s words had found their mark.
"Silence!" Luciano roared, fury twisting his scarred visage. "I built this underworld! I decide who lives and who—"
*NOW!*
Constance didn't aim at Luciano. She racked her SPAS-12 and fired three massive, deafening slugs directly into the hydraulic lock holding the iron counterweight above the gantry.
The steel cable snapped with a sound like a cracking whip.
The three-ton block plummeted toward the floor with a terrifying roar. The sudden displacement of tension sent the high-tensile wire whipping across the catwalk like a razor-sharp scythe.
Clara leaped.
She didn't hesitate. She threw herself off the catwalk into open air, catching the descending pulley cable with her gloved hands. The momentum swung her through the air in an arc of pure, desperate adrenaline, her combat boots clearing the edge of the steel table.
Luciano spun around, firing blindly.
The .44 magnum round tore through Clara’s left shoulder, the shockwave ripping a scream from her lungs, but the sheer force of her descent carried her forward. She slammed her entire body weight into Luciano, tackling the old tyrant off his feet and throwing them both crashing into the flooded lower staging pit!
The detonator flew from his grip, skipping across the wet concrete into the dark, swirling canal water below.
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"Julian! The baby!" Clara screamed as she hit the cold, greasy water, wrestling in the mud with the thrashing, snarling demon who shared her blood.
***
