Chapter 7 - The Ledger of Daniel Hayes
“Get down!” Gabriel shouted, shoving me and Lily behind a stack of steel shelving inside the storage unit.
The concrete walls exploded into fragments as high-caliber rounds shredded the corrugated metal door. Bullets whistled through the air, tearing through cardboard boxes and showering us in dust and shattered glass. Lily screamed, burying her face into my chest. I covered her body with my own, trembling violently as the deafening percussion of automatic weapons shook the ground.
Outside, the fight was immediate and savage.
Dante’s submachine gun barked in heavy, disciplined bursts. Glass shattered, metal buckled, and men shouted in guttural rage.
“Salvatore Bellini sent his personal hitters,” Gabriel said with ice-cold clarity, dropping his empty magazine onto the concrete and slapping a fresh one home. He peered around the metal doorframe, firing two precise shots into the yard. A man screamed and collapsed behind an SUV.
“Gabriel!” I cried over the roar of gunfire. “How did they find us?”
Gabriel glanced back at Vanessa, who was cowering behind the rear bumper of Dante’s vehicle, screaming in hysterics.
“They didn't track the phone,” Gabriel muttered. “Salvatore has had spotters watching every storage facility registered under Daniel’s known aliases for three years. They’ve been waiting for someone to retrieve the drive.”
A bullet ricocheted inches above Gabriel’s head, sending sparks into the dim storage locker.
“Stay here,” Gabriel said, turning to look at me. His gray eyes were fiercely calm in the middle of the storm. “No matter what happens, do not move from this corner until you hear my voice.”
“Gabriel, please be careful!” I gasped, my hand instinctively catching his sleeve.
He looked down at my hand, then at Lily, who was sobbing silently against my ribs. “Daniel died protecting me, Rachel. Today, I balance the ledger. I will not let his family fall.”
He pulled his sleeve free and lunged out into the crossfire.
What followed was a masterclass in tactical violence. Gabriel didn't fight like a mob boss shielded by bodyguards; he fought like a man raised in blood. Moving with lethal efficiency from vehicle to pillar, his .45 cracked rhythmically. Every shot found a target.
A Bellini soldier tried to flank the storage unit with an assault rifle. Gabriel intercepted him, grabbing the barrel with his bare hand, wrenching it upward as it fired into the roof, and driving his combat knife into the man’s tactical vest with sickening force. The soldier dropped like a stone.
From the opposite side of the yard, Dante flanked the remaining two shooters, cutting them down with a sweeping arc of lead.
Within ninety seconds, the gunfire stopped.
The only sounds remaining were the hiss of a punctured radiator, the hum of the distant train, and Vanessa’s pathetic, shuddering sobs.
Gabriel walked back into the storage locker. His coat was torn at the shoulder, a thin line of red grazing his cheekbone, but his eyes were alive with righteous fury. He held Daniel’s flash drive securely in his bloody fist.
“Dante,” Gabriel called out, his voice level.
“Three shooters down, Boss. Two vehicles disabled. I’ve called the cleanup crew.”
Gabriel walked over to where I crouched with Lily. He slowly knelt down, extending his clean left hand toward me.
“It’s over, Rachel,” he said softly. “Come out.”
I stood up on shaking legs, holding Lily in my arms. As we stepped out into the cold yard, the smell of cordite and copper was thick in the air. Six Bellini gunmen lay motionless on the slush-covered gravel.
Vanessa was on her knees, her face covered in dirt, staring at the carnage in absolute horror.
Gabriel walked past the bodies and stopped in front of her. He held up Daniel’s flash drive.
“Your father spent three years looking for this,” Gabriel told her. “Tell him he can hear the contents tonight at the Commission meeting.”
May you like
He turned to Dante. “Throw her in the back. We’re going to the Grand Council.”
***
