Chapter 9 - The Blood on the Mountain Pass
The funeral of Evelyn Brooks at Saint Jude’s Cathedral was attended by five hundred people who feared her son.
City council members, district judges, union bosses, and uniformed police captains sat quietly in the polished oak pews.
Outside, a light desert rain fell over Phoenix, washing the dust from the black limousines lining the avenue.
Nathan stood at the front of the nave, an immovable monolith in a bespoke black suit, his face carved from dark slate.
He held my hand with an iron grip that never wavered throughout the two-hour Catholic requiem mass.
Noah and Lily sat between us, dressed in respectful dark navy, their small faces solemn and quiet.
At the rear of the cathedral, standing beneath the shadow of the stone archway, stood Victor Brooks.
He had arrived under the cover of a temporary legal injunction obtained by his high-priced criminal defense attorneys.
Victor wore dark sunglasses to hide his bloodshot eyes, flanked by four nervous bodyguards who kept their hands inside their coats.
He did not approach the altar, nor did he dare to meet Nathan’s murderous gaze across the sea of black umbrellas.
Under the ancient laws of the syndicate, church grounds during a matriarch’s funeral were sacred neutral territory.
A single act of violence within those walls would turn every crime boss in the western hemisphere against the offender.
Yet the moment the casket was lowered into the Brooks family mausoleum at sunset, the truce expired.
Our motorcade departed the cemetery in a three-vehicle tactical formation, heading north along the winding curves of Camelback Pass.
The lead SUV carried four armed guards commanded by Marco Silva.
Nathan, Noah, Lily, and I rode in the heavily armored center sedan, driven by a veteran enforcer named Christian.
The rear SUV followed thirty yards behind, providing rear perimeter surveillance against trailing vehicles.
The rain intensified as the road climbed into the jagged red cliffs of the mountain pass.
Lily was leaning against my shoulder, playing quietly with a small silver cross Evelyn had given her before the end.
Noah sat next to Nathan, watching the mountain rain splash against the reinforced ballistic glass.
“Nathan?” Noah asked suddenly, pointing out the passenger window toward the high ridge above the road.
“Why is that big construction truck parked on the cliff in the dark?”
Nathan’s head snapped toward the mountain ridge in a fraction of a second.
He saw the heavy yellow dump truck idling on the gravel overlook above the hairpin turn.
“Brace!” Nathan roared through the intercom to the driver.
“Ram the lead, Christian! Go!”
Before the driver could stomp on the accelerator, a massive wall of boulders, gravel, and wet mud crashed down the cliff face.
The lead SUV took the direct impact of the rockslide, spinning sideways across the highway with its tires screeching in vain.
The armored sedan slammed into the debris, the heavy anti-lock brakes grinding with a violent, bone-rattling shudder.
Through the rain-streaked windshield, headlights suddenly ignited on the ridge above us.
Three unmarked pickup trucks slid down the gravel embankment, blocking both lanes of the narrow mountain road.
Men wearing tactical balaclavas and rain slickers poured out of the truck beds, raising automatic rifles toward our vehicle.
“Down on the floor!” Nathan shouted, shoving Noah and Lily into the reinforced footwell beneath the leather seats.
I dropped over my children’s bodies, using my own back and arms as a human shield against the dark windows.
A deafening storm of automatic gunfire erupted against the armored exterior of the sedan.
Bullets struck the bulletproof glass with explosive cracks, creating spiderwebs of white frost across the dark tint.
The steel body panels absorbed hundreds of high-velocity rounds with heavy, ringing thuds that terrified the children.
Lily screamed, burying her face into my stomach, while Noah clenched his small fists, tears leaking from his eyes.
“I’m here, baby, I’m right here,” I whispered frantically into Lily’s ear, kissing her temple over and over.
“Christian is down!” the driver choked out, a round having penetrated through the reinforced radiator into the steering column.
Nathan did not hesitate.
He reached beneath the front console, pulled out a short-barreled tactical carbine, and kicked the driver’s side door open against the rain.
“Marco!” Nathan barked into his tactical radio.
“Flank from the ditch! Suppress the high ground!”
Nathan stepped out into the raging storm of bullets and rain, his weapon barking with controlled, devastating precision.
I watched through the lower crack of the door as two attackers on the ridge fell backward into the mud.
Gunfire echoed off the canyon walls like rolling thunder.
Marco and three surviving guards from the lead SUV counterattacked from the drainage ditch, laying down a wall of covering fire.
The ambushers, expecting an easy execution of a grieving family, were unprepared for Nathan’s lethal counter-assault.
Within two minutes, the gunfire from the road began to scatter as the remaining attackers realized their position was compromised.
Nathan fired three final rounds into the engine block of the nearest pickup truck, causing it to billow white steam into the night.
He turned back toward our car, his breathing ragged, his face soaked in rain and black gunpowder residue.
Then, a lone shooter hiding behind a boulder on the upper ridge fired a single rifle shot before fleeing into the desert brush.
Nathan flinched, his left shoulder jerking backward with the violent impact of the heavy bullet.
My heart stopped in my chest.
“Nathan!” I screamed, throwing open the passenger door and ignoring the danger.
Nathan stumbled against the rear fender of the sedan, his right hand gripping his bleeding left shoulder.
Blood poured through the torn fabric of his black suit, staining his white dress shirt a violent crimson.
Marco sprinted across the asphalt, his weapon raised, sweeping the ridgeline until he was certain the canyon was clear.
“The ridge is clean!” Marco yelled.
“Ambush neutralized! Call the medical transport!”
“No hospitals,” Nathan grunted through clenched teeth, his face pale beneath the mountain rain.
“Victor has eyes in every emergency room in Phoenix.”
“Take us to the safe house in Carefree.”
I grabbed Nathan’s uninjured arm, hauling his massive weight back into the rear seat of the car.
I stripped off my silk scarf and pressed it hard against the bullet wound in his shoulder, leaning my entire body weight into the pressure point.
Nathan groaned in agony, his head falling back against the leather headrest, his dark eyes looking up into mine.
“The kids...” he whispered, his voice fading with shock.
“Are the kids safe?”
Noah poked his head up from the footwell, looking at the blood covering Nathan’s shirt with wide, horrified eyes.
“I’m okay, Nathan!” Noah cried out, reaching up to touch Nathan’s bloody knee.
“Lily is okay too!”
Nathan looked at my son, a faint, bloody smile touching his lips.
“Good boy, Noah,” Nathan breathed softly.
“Good boy.”
I pressed down harder on the wound, my tears mixing with the rain on his collar.
“Save your strength, Nathan Brooks,” I ordered him, my voice shaking with fierce, desperate rage.
“You are not dying on this mountain.”
“You promised my son you would never run away, and you are going to keep that promise.”
Nathan’s eyes held mine in the dark cabin, his bloody fingers reaching up to wrap weakly around my wrist.
May you like
“I’m not dying, Emily,” he whispered.
“Not when I finally have a reason to live.”
