Chapter 5 - Escape Through the Underground
The force of the explosion lifted us off our feet, sending us tumbling down the concrete steps of the subterranean tunnel in a chaotic tangle of limbs, dust, and debris. My ears rang with a deafening, high-pitched screech, and the taste of copper and gunpowder filled my mouth. For a terrifying few seconds, the world went completely black.
“Hunter! Hunter, look at me!”
A rough, warm hand shook my shoulder. I blinked rapidly, coughing violently as a thick cloud of plaster dust settled around us. The emergency amber lights flickered overhead, casting long, eerie shadows across the damp stone walls of the tunnel.
I sat up, gasping for air, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. “Leo… where is Leo?”
“I have him,” Lorenzo’s voice came, thick with strain. He was kneeling a few feet away, clutching the baby tightly against his chest. Lorenzo’s white dress shirt was torn at the shoulder, stained with soot and a dark smear of blood—though thankfully, a quick inspection showed it wasn't the baby's. Lorenzo rocked Leo gently, whispering soothing words until the infant let out a startled, healthy cry.
“He’s okay. He’s safe,” Lorenzo breathed out, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second in profound relief before his tactical instincts kicked back in. He looked back up the stairs, where the heavy steel bulkhead door was now warped and scorched from the grenade blast.
Marcus was already at the bottom of the stairs, chambering a round into his submachine gun, his face bleeding from a shrapnel scratch across his cheek. “Boss! They breached the upper floor! That wasn't a standard entry team—that was Moretti’s elite clean-up squad. They knew about the panic room tunnel.”
“They didn't just know about the tunnel, Marcus,” Lorenzo said, his voice dropping into a chilling, dead calm as he carefully handed Leo back into my arms. I instinctively pulled the baby close, wrapping my jacket around him to shield him from the chill of the underground corridor. Lorenzo stood up, his eyes narrowing into slits. “Someone inside my inner circle sold us out. The access codes to this panic tunnel were restricted to three people: me, you, and Silvio.”
Marcus’s jaw dropped. “Silvio? Boss, Silvio has been with your father for thirty years. He’s like family!”
“Family is the easiest blade to slip between your ribs,” Lorenzo retorted coldly, cocking his Sig Sauer. He looked down at me, his expression softening just enough to show the human beneath the mafia warlord. “Hunter, listen to me. This tunnel runs straight for six hundred yards. At the end, you’ll find a heavy iron door with a keypad. Enter code 0-4-1-2. It will open into the boathouse. There’s a speedboat moored at the slip with a full fuel tank and navigation set to our safehouse in Montauk.”
My blood ran cold. I clutched Leo tighter against my chest, staring up at him in sheer panic. “What about you? You’re not coming with us?”
“I have to draw them away,” Lorenzo said firmly, stepping back toward the stairs. “If Moretti’s men think the baby is still in this sector of the estate, they will hunt us down in the open water before we even clear the sound. I need to close the blast doors from this side, wipe them out, and find out who gave our position away.”
“No! You can't stay here alone!” I cried out, my voice echoing off the damp stone walls. The thought of losing him—the only man who had looked at my grief and validated my pain, the man who was now fighting to protect my adopted child—sent a sharp, agonizing pang straight through my heart.
Lorenzo paused, looking back at me with a gaze so intense, so full of unspoken emotion, that time seemed to completely stop. He reached out, his warm, calloused fingers cupping my cheek, gently wiping a streak of soot and tears from my skin.
“Listen to me, Hunter,” he whispered fiercely. “I lost my wife in a war I didn't finish. I almost lost my son because I trusted the wrong shadows. I am not going to lose the two people who brought light back into this house. Get to the boat. Keep my son safe. If I draw breath after tonight, I will find you before sunrise.”
Before I could protest another word, Lorenzo turned sharply and sprinted back up the stairs toward the ruined bulkhead, yelling commands to Marcus, who reluctantly fell in behind his boss to cover the rear.
“Move!” Marcus shouted back at me over the rising sound of distant gunfire echoing down from the mansion above. “Go, Hunter! Now!”
Tears blinding my vision, I turned and ran down the dark, echoing length of the subterranean corridor. Every step felt like running through wet cement. My lungs burned, my legs shook from exhaustion and adrenaline, but I didn't dare slow down. I held Leo securely against my chest with one arm while keeping the heavy pistol gripped tightly in my right hand, the cold steel a grim reminder of the brutal world we were trying to escape.
Six hundred yards felt like six miles. As I rounded the final bend of the damp stone tunnel, a massive iron door loomed out of the darkness. Shaking violently, I punched the four-digit code into the digital keypad—0-4-1-2—the exact date of the tragedy at Saint Jude’s that had intertwined our fates forever.
BEEP.
The heavy locking mechanism groaned and disengaged with a loud, satisfying pneumatic click. I threw my weight against the iron slab, shoving it open.
Cool, salty night air rushed over my face, carrying the scent of the open ocean. Through the open doorway, I saw the sleek silhouette of a black high-speed marine vessel bobbing gently against the wooden pier inside the enclosed boathouse. The moonlight danced across the dark, churning waters of the Long Island Sound.
I stumbled out onto the wooden dock, panting heavily, looking back toward the dark entrance of the tunnel. Faint explosions and the unmistakable rattle of automatic gunfire still echoed from deep within the estate grounds up on the cliff.
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“Please, God… let him survive,” I whispered into the wind, clutching Leo as I scrambled aboard the speedboat.
I settled the baby safely into a padded compartment in the cabin, primed the ignition based on the quick-start instructions glowing on the digital dashboard, and grabbed the steering wheel. As the engine roared to life with a deep, throaty purr that vibrated through the hull, I looked back toward the burning estate on the hill, knowing that my life—and the life of the fierce mafia boss who had claimed my heart—would never be the same again.
