Chapter 5 - The Unlikely Rescue
"I got it!" Lina announced proudly, holding the heavy yellow-handled wire snips up toward his chest as if she had just retrieved Excalibur from the stone.
Damiano looked down at the tool in her tiny hands, then up at her determined little face. The absurdity of the situation struck him with such force that a faint, tired smile finally broke through the grim line of his mouth. Here he was, the feared head of the Falcone syndicate, a man who commanded hundreds of armed men across the eastern seaboard, rescued not by his elite guard or his closest capos, but by a three-year-old girl in a wrinkled nightgown who had cereal crumbs on her collar.
"Good girl," Damiano whispered, his voice softening completely. "Now, listen to me very carefully, Lina. Hold the handles with both hands. Like this." He tilted his head toward the lower zip-tie binding his right wrist to the iron pillar. "See this plastic strap? Put the metal part right in the middle of it. And squeeze as hard as you can."
Lina nodded solemnly, her tongue poking out just a fraction between her lips as she concentrated with every fiber of her small being.
She stepped closer, hoisting the heavy wire snips up. The tool weighed nearly as much as her winter boots, but stubborn determination can make mountains move—or at least cut through industrial plastic. She wedged the jaws of the snips around the thick zip-tie binding Damiano’s right wrist.
"Ready?" she asked, looking up at him for confirmation.
"Ready, piccola," Damiano said, bracing his muscles.
Lina squeezed. Her small face turned slightly red with the effort, her tiny muscles trembling under the weight of the steel tool. For a second, the plastic resisted, bending under the pressure.
"Harder," Damiano encouraged gently, his eyes locked on hers.
With a fierce little grunt, Lina threw her entire body weight into the handles.
SNAP.
The thick plastic zip-tie severed with a sharp crack that echoed off the stone walls. Damiano’s right arm instantly snapped free from the pillar, the sudden rush of returning blood sending a sharp, painful pins-and-needles sensation shooting all the way up to his shoulder. He bit down hard on his inner cheek to keep from crying out.
"Yay!" Lina cheered softly, dropping the heavy snips onto the floor with a loud clatter and clapping her hands together.
"Quiet, sweet girl," Damiano whispered, dropping his freed hand to gently pat the top of her messy curls. "We aren't out of the woods yet. Help me with the other one."
With his right hand now free, Damiano grabbed the remaining zip-ties on his left wrist and chest, ripping them apart with a surge of adrenaline and sheer physical power that he had been saving for this exact moment. He dropped heavily to the concrete floor, his bruised ribs aching fiercely, but he didn't waste a second.
He scooped Lina up into his arms, pulling her small, warm body tight against his chest. She wrapped her arms securely around his neck, burying her face into the crook of his shoulder, right where his expensive wool coat was stained with dust and blood.
"Are we playing hide-and-seek now?" she asked innocently into his ear.
"Something like that," Damiano murmured, his eyes blazing with a cold, terrifying fury as he stared at the heavy iron door of the cellar. "Hold on to me tight, Lina. We're going for a walk."
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He strode across the cellar floor toward the heavy door. He reached up, grabbed the deadbolt, and twisted it. It turned with a smooth, oiled click. Carlo had assumed no one would ever come down here, so he hadn't bothered to double-lock it from the outside—a fatal hubris.
Damiano pushed the heavy timber door open, stepping out into the cool, pre-dawn shadows of the Eldergate estate service corridor, carrying his tiny savior safely in his arms.
