Chapter 8 - Fire and Concrete
"Looking for me?"
Brielle's voice rang out from the darkness of the upper catwalks, calm and mocking.
Julian instinctively looked up toward the sound, his gun barrel shifting away from Elena's head by just a few inches.
Crack.
Brielle squeezed the trigger. Her high-calibrated round struck Julian's gun hand, shattering his weapon and severing two of his fingers. Julian shrieked in pain, stumbling backward into the shadow of a concrete pillar.
"Move!" Matteo roared.
All hell broke loose inside the silo. Matteo drew his dual pistols, dropping two mercenaries before they could raise their rifles. From above, Viktor and Brielle provided devastating cover fire, wiping out the gunmen caught in the open floor.
Brielle rappelled down from the catwalk, swinging through the air like a shadow and landing smoothly beside Nonna Elena. She sliced through the old woman's ropes with a tactical blade.
"Get her behind the reinforced pillar!" Brielle shouted to Viktor, who rushed forward to carry the matriarch to safety.
Meanwhile, Julian, clutching his bleeding hand, sprinted toward the rear exit of the silo facility, heading toward the dock where an armored speedboat was waiting.
"He's getting away!" Brielle yelled.
"Not tonight," Matteo growled.
Together, Matteo and Brielle pursued Julian into the maze of rusted conveyor belts and flooded concrete tunnels beneath the silos. The air was thick with smoke, spark flashes, and the thunderous roar of storm rain crashing against the metallic roof.
Julian turned a corner, firing wildly over his shoulder with a backup gun. A stray bullet caught Matteo in the side, causing him to stumble against a rusted steel wall with a grunt of pain.
"Matteo!" Brielle caught him, holding his weight.
"Go..." Matteo gasped, pressing a hand against his bleeding abdomen, his eyes fixed on hers with desperate urgency. "Don't let him escape. He has the answers about Lily!"
Brielle looked at Matteo's blood, then toward the dark tunnel where Julian had fled. The ghost of Ashland Avenue rose up before her—the fear, the hesitation, the silence that had trapped her for eleven long years.
May you like
She turned back to Matteo, pressed her lips briefly against his forehead, and whispered, "I'm not freezing ever again."
She drew her combat knife, pulled her secondary sidearm, and sprinted into the dark after the monster who had destroyed her past.
