Chapter 9 - Ambush in Hell’s Kitchen
The roar of submachine-gun fire inside the enclosed basement was deafening, bouncing off the brick foundations like thunderclaps.
Plaster and masonry dust rained down upon us in a choking white fog.
Gabriel rolled off me, drew his weapon from beneath his coat, and fired three double-taps toward the wooden staircase.
Two muffled grunts and the sound of a heavy body tumbling down the wooden steps followed his fire.
“Move!” Gabriel barked, grabbing the waxed-canvas bundle with one hand and hauling me upward by my jacket collar.
We scrambled behind the massive cast-iron boiler just as another volley of bullets chewed through the wooden storage cages.
Sparks flew from the boiler’s iron flank as high-velocity rounds ricocheted wildly across the room.
“How many?” I choked out, wiping concrete grit and powdered lime from my eyes.
“Three shooters on the stairs, one watching the street level,” Gabriel said calmly, ejecting his spent magazine and slapping a fresh one into the grip.
His hands were steady, his pulse visibly slow and controlled despite the chaos.
“Vincent didn't follow us from Bedford,” Gabriel analyzed in a low, cold whisper.
“He had an observation car stationed on Forty-Eighth Street since noon, waiting to see if you came home.”
“There is a coal-delivery chute behind the secondary water heater,” I said, pointing toward the gloom at the back wall.
“It leads directly into the alley behind the Italian bakery.”
“The grate is bolted from the inside with an iron crossbar.”
Gabriel glanced at the steel crowbar still clutched in my left hand.
“Can you knock the bar out?” he asked.
“I’ve knocked it loose every time we needed to hide Bernardo’s firewood,” I snapped.
“Go,” Gabriel ordered.
“I’ll suppress the corridor.”
Gabriel stepped out from behind the boiler, firing four rapid, rhythmic shots toward the stairs that forced the attackers back into the doorway.
I sprinted toward the rear wall, dodging piles of discarded piping and broken furniture.
The coal chute was a four-foot-tall square steel hatch set three feet up into the stone wall.
An iron bar rested in two heavy iron brackets across the center of the door.
Years of moisture and coal dust had rusted the bar into the brackets like welded metal.
I jammed the chisel tip of Bernardo’s crowbar beneath the bracket and threw my entire ninety-eight pounds of weight against it.
The metal screeched, but the bar didn't budge.
Behind me, Gabriel’s gun clicked empty.
He dropped behind a stack of radiators, slamming his back against the wall as automatic rounds stitched across the brickwork above his head.
“Tessa! The chute!” Gabriel yelled over the gunfire.
I looked at the heavy steel crowbar, gripped it with both hands, and brought it down like an axe onto the center of the iron bar.
CLANG.
The vibration tore through my wrists, sending blinding pain up my forearms.
I swung again with all the rage, terror, and desperation built up over five years of hospital bills and starvation wages.
CRACK.
The rusted iron bar snapped in two, the brackets shearing off the stone wall with a shower of rusted sparks.
I kicked the heavy steel hatch open with the heel of my boot.
A blast of cold, rain-soaked air rushed into the suffocating basement, bringing the smell of wet asphalt and fresh bread.
Gabriel backed toward the opening, firing his final magazine one-handed while tucking the heavy canvas ledger under his arm.
“Climb through!” he ordered, grabbing my hip and lifting me toward the dark metal chute.
I scrambled up the slick metal slope, clawing at the rusted sides until my hands broke through into the pouring rain of the alleyway.
I hauled myself out onto the wet cobblestones, spun around, and reached back down into the opening.
Gabriel thrust the canvas-wrapped ledger up into my arms, followed immediately by his own hands as he propelled himself through the narrow frame.
As his boots cleared the hatch, a shotgun blast obliterated the metal chute below, sending buckshot whistling harmlessly into the brick overhead.
Gabriel slammed the heavy steel exterior grate shut and jammed Bernardo’s crowbar through the padlock rings, sealing the shooters inside.
“The street!” I gasped, pointing down the narrow alleyway toward Ninth Avenue.
We sprinted through the blinding rain, our lungs burning with fire and masonry dust.
We emerged onto the sidewalk just as the headlights of Gabriel’s black sedan swung around the corner.
Marco sat behind the wheel, his face emotionless as he hit the brakes, throwing the passenger doors wide.
We dived into the rear seat, and Marco floored the accelerator before our doors had even clicked shut.
The heavy sedan leaped forward, its tires screaming against the wet asphalt as we rocketed toward the Lincoln Tunnel.
In the back seat, Gabriel slumped against the leather, his chest heaving as he pulled off his ruined, soot-stained coat.
I collapsed beside him, clutching the heavy canvas ledger against my ribs like a newborn child.
My hands were covered in black coal grease, blood, and rust.
Gabriel reached out with his bare hand, took my bruised, trembling fingers, and pulled them gently away from the book.
He checked my palms for deep cuts, his touch surprisingly tender against my raw skin.
“You didn't run,” Gabriel said quietly, his slate-grey eyes searching mine in the dim interior of the speeding car.
“If I ran, who would cook your father’s steak on Sunday?” I answered, trying and failing to steady the tremor in my voice.
Gabriel stared at me for three long heartbeats, then reached down and unfastened the waxed canvas cord around the ledger.
The thick, cracked leather cover fell open upon his lap.
Beneath the handwritten columns of Swiss bank account numbers and property transfers lay a yellowed, handwritten letter dated October 14, 1974.
Written in fading black ink in Bernardo Cosenza’s elegant, old-world calligraphy was a single confession:
Salvatore, my brother by oath.
I took the gold not to steal from you, but to save you from your own blood.
The man who ordered your mother’s car bomb was not the Maroni family.
May you like
It was your brother, Carlo.
And Carlo’s son, Vincent, carries the exact same poison in his veins.
