Chapter 6 - THE NIGHT OF FIRE AND GLASS
The attack came at 3:14 AM.
Lily was startled awake by a sound that sounded like a continuous string of firecrackers exploding in the hallway outside. It took her brain three seconds to realize it wasn't fireworks—it was automatic gunfire.
The heavy oak door of her bedroom burst open, and Marco sprinted inside, a massive assault rifle gripped in his hands. His face was bleeding from a superficial cut on his forehead, his usual stoic expression replaced by absolute urgency.
"Miss Harper, get up! Now!" Marco barked, grabbing a thick wool coat from the chair and throwing it over her shoulders. "They bypassed the lobby security. Someone turned off the service elevators from the inside. We have to go to the safe room."
Lily didn't panic. The six years of survival after her father’s death had taught her how to compartmentalize terror. She grabbed her father’s silver pocket watch from the nightstand, slipping it into the pocket of her silk pajamas, and followed Marco out into the main living room.
The beautiful penthouse was in ruins. The floor-to-ceiling windows had been shattered into a million glinting diamonds by incoming fire from the adjacent rooftop. The cold Chicago wind howled through the room, blowing the cream-colored curtains into wild, ghostly shapes.
Joey was near the kitchen island, returning fire through a broken glass pane toward the hallway. "Marco! There are twelve of them on the fire stairs! We’re cut off from the main elevator!"
"The service hatch!" Marco yelled back, guiding Lily toward a small, reinforced steel door hidden behind the pantry. "Get her down to the sub-basement! Don Vincent is on his way, but he’s ten minutes out!"
Before they could reach the hatch, the main entrance door was blown off its hinges with a deafening explosion.
Three men in black tactical gear and ski masks stormed into the room, their weapons raised. Marco threw Lily to the floor, using his own massive body as a shield as he opened fire. The noise inside the enclosed space was catastrophic, a symphony of fire, glass, and screaming metal.
Lily pressed herself against the marble floor, her hands over her head. She could hear the wet, heavy thuds of bullets hitting flesh, the grunts of dying men, and the terrifyingly close shout of Salvatore Luchesi’s voice.
"Find the girl! Luchesi wants her alive! Kill the rest!"
A man in a ski mask grabbed Lily by the hair, hauling her up from the floor. She screamed, fighting back with a primal fury she didn't know she possessed. She dug her fingernails into the man’s eyes through the holes in his mask, causing him to howl in pain and drop his weapon.
Marco spun around, dropping the man with a single, brutal shot to the chest, but another burst of gunfire hit Marco in the shoulder, spinning him around and sending him crashing into the kitchen island.
Lily was alone. The room was thick with gray gunsmoke, the smell of cordite, and the bitter cold of the incoming wind.
She scrambled toward the service hatch, her hands slipping on the blood-slicked marble. She reached the steel door, her fingers clawing at the electronic lock, but before she could enter the code, a heavy boot slammed into her hand, pinning her fingers to the floor.
She looked up to see Salvatore Luchesi himself standing over her. He wasn't wearing a mask. His oily face was twisted into a triumphant, disgusting grin, a silver pistol leveled at her chest.
"Well, well, look at the little mouse," Salvatore purred, reaching down to grab her by the collar of her emerald green coat, hauling her to her feet. "Vincent’s precious little secret. You're going to be a very expensive bargaining chip, sweetheart."
"Let her go, Salvatore."
The voice didn't come from the hallway. It came from the shattered window frame.
Vincent Moretti stood on the narrow balcony outside, twenty stories above the ground. He had bypassed the blocked stairwells by using an industrial window-washing platform from the adjacent building. He looked like an avenging demon emerging from the dark storm, his clothes soaked with rain, a submachine gun gripped in his right hand.
Salvatore froze, instantly pulling Lily in front of him as a human shield, burying his gun into her side. "Don't move, Moretti! One step and I put a hole through her soft little stomach!"
Vincent didn't step forward. He stood perfectly still in the howling wind, his gray eyes locked onto Salvatore’s face with a clarity that was more terrifying than any scream of rage.
"You think you have a shield, Salvatore," Vincent said, his voice carrying clearly over the wind. "But you are holding the daughter of Arthur Harper. She has the blood of a hero in her veins. And you... you are just a dead man who hasn't stopped breathing yet."
Lily looked down at the gun pressed into her ribs. She felt the heavy weight of her father’s watch in her pocket. She remembered her father pulling a young boy out of a sinking car while the dark river rushed around him. He hadn't been afraid. He had done what was necessary.
She looked up at Vincent, seeing the absolute trust in his eyes.
Lily didn't scream. She didn't beg. She simply drove her heavy, discounted shoe down onto Salvatore’s instep with all her weight, while simultaneously throwing her head backward into his nose.
The crunch of Salvatore’s nose breaking echoed through the room. He cried out, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second as he stumbled back.
That fraction of a second was all Vincent needed.
Two shots rang out in perfect, surgical succession. The first hit Salvatore in the shoulder, spinning him away from Lily. The second hit him dead center in the forehead.
The underboss of the south side collapsed onto the ruined marble floor, his dark eyes wide and empty, staring at the ceiling as his life pooled around him.
Vincent sprinted across the room, catching Lily before her knees could buckle. He pulled her into his arms, crushing her against his wet sweater, his body shaking with a profound, terrifying relief.
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"I have you, Lily," he choked out, his voice cracking as he buried his face in her neck. "I have you. You're safe. It's over."
Lily held him back, her tears finally flowing, her hands gripping the fabric of his coat. The citadel had fallen, but they were still standing in the ruins, alive, together, and undefeated.
