Chapter 8 - CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE
Bullets ricocheted off the metal safe deposit boxes.
The air filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder.
Dante shoved me behind a thick concrete pillar.
"Stay down!" he ordered, drawing his pistol.
He leaned around the corner and fired twice.
A heavy thud echoed down the aisle.
Someone screamed in pain.
"How many are they?" I shouted over the gunfire.
"At least four," Dante yelled back.
"Moretti's clean-up crew."
I clutched the leather ledger to my chest.
The birth certificate was gripped tightly in my hand.
Salvatore Gallo was not just my grandfather's old partner.
He was something much closer.
"Dante!" I called out.
"What?"
"Look at the certificate!"
Dante glanced back at me, firing another round down the corridor.
"I saw it!"
"Who am I?"
"You're my sister," Dante shouted above the noise.
The world stopped spinning for a second.
Sister.
The shy waitress, the daughter of Pietro, was a Gallo.
"Focus!" Dante yelled, grabbing my shoulder.
"We need to move now!"
He pulled me up and pushed me toward the service elevator.
One of Dante's guards went down, clutching his thigh.
"Cover us!" Dante roared to the remaining guard.
We scrambled into the elevator.
Dante slammed his fist against the close-door button.
The heavy steel doors slid shut just as Moretti's men rounded the corner.
Bullets pinged uselessly off the exterior doors.
The elevator groaned as it began to ascend.
Blood dripped from Dante's left shoulder.
"You're hit," I said, pointing at his coat.
"It's just a scratch," Dante grunted, pressing his hand against the wound.
"We need to get out of the city."
"Where?"
"To the old family safehouse in the mountains."
The elevator chimed and opened to the subterranean parking garage.
May you like
Our getaway car was waiting.
Or so we hoped.
