Chapter 3 - THE BLOODIED LINEN
The wooden splinters rained down on Tessa’s head like sharp confetti. Dust and plaster filled the air, smelling of burnt cordite and pulverized stone. Screams tore through the restaurant beyond the shattered double doors—waitresses shrieking, patrons stampeding toward the emergency exits, tables overturning with the deafening smash of fine china.
Tessa pressed her back against the credenza, her hands clamped over her mouth to stifle a scream. Her knees rattled against the floorboards.
Salvatore was already on one knee in front of her. He didn't look terrified; he looked like a machine switching into active combat mode. Because he couldn't hear the deafening roar of the gunfire, he wasn't disoriented by the noise. Instead, his eyes were hyper-focused on the visual cues—the muzzle flashes lighting up the haze in the doorway, the trajectory of the drywall dust puffing out from bullet impacts, the hand signals of his lead bodyguard.
The lead guard, whose name was Marco, was crouched behind an overturned marble buffet table near the door, firing a suppressed pistol with measured, double-tap cadence into the hallway.
Salvatore caught Marco’s eye. Marco’s left hand flashed three quick signs: Four shooters. Moretti's street hitters. Heavy armor. Brett led them through the kitchen delivery bay.
Salvatore’s jaw clenched, the muscles rippling along his scar. He reached inside his jacket, pulled a sleek, custom black semi-automatic from a leather shoulder holster, and flicked the safety off with his thumb.
Then he looked at Tessa.
He didn't speak with a voice, but his hands moved with an absolute, grounding stillness that sliced straight through her panic.
“Look at me,” he signed.
Tessa forced her tearing eyes to meet his.
“You stay behind me. Do not crawl out. Do not run. If you run into that hallway, you die. Understand?”
She nodded frantically, her chin quivering.
A heavy shotgun blast ripped through the remaining frame of the door, obliterating the mahogany molding above Marco’s head. Plaster rained down. Marco fired three shots through the smoke, and a heavy thud in the corridor signaled that one of the attackers had dropped. But another volley of automatic fire pinned Marco down, chewing through the marble table and sending lethal stone shards across the carpet.
Salvatore didn't wait. He moved with a speed that defied his bespoke three-piece suit. Rolling out from the credenza, he used the heavy brass legs of the banquet table as cover, leveled his pistol, and squeezed the trigger twice through the doorway.
A man in a black tactical jacket stumbled through the opening, clutching his throat, before collapsing face-first onto the ruined rug.
Salvatore didn't even watch the body fall. He spun, grabbed Tessa by the wrist with fingers like iron bands, and hauled her toward the back of the private dining room. Behind a decorative velvet curtain hung a low service door used exclusively for the restaurant’s private wine cellar.
He kicked the latch loose with the heel of his leather boot and shoved her through the opening into the darkness of the narrow concrete staircase.
“Down!” he signed, pointing down into the subterranean chill.
They scrambled down the stairs just as another burst of fire chewed through the velvet curtain above them. Marco tumbled down the steps behind them, his shoulder soaked in dark crimson blood, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Marco,” Salvatore signed rapidly as they reached the concrete floor of the wine cellar.
Marco leaned against a rack of vintage Bordeaux, his face grey. He signed with his uninjured hand: They locked the street exit at the top of the cellar chute. We are boxed in. The rest of our detail is pinned down outside in the alley.
Tessa looked around the dimly lit cellar. The scent of damp earth and aging oak barrels was thick. Overhead, the muffled vibrations of boots running across the dining room floor resonated through the ceiling. They were searching for them. It was only a matter of seconds before they found the staircase behind the curtain.
“There’s another way,” Tessa signed frantically, stepping between Salvatore and Marco.
Salvatore caught her hands, his eyes sharp. “Where?”
“The old laundry chute,” she signed, her hands flying with desperate speed. “This building used to be an old hotel before Laurent bought it. Behind the third wine rack on the west wall, there’s an iron service panel that leads into the building’s old laundry boiler room. From there, a ground-level ventilation grate opens into the alley behind the bakery next door! Nobody uses it because it’s rusted shut, but the latch is broken!”
Salvatore didn't hesitate. He didn't question her. He turned to Marco, signaled the command, and together they threw their weight against the towering wooden wine rack.
Bottles worth thousands of dollars crashed to the floor, spilling rich red liquid that looked horrifyingly like blood in the dim bulb light. Behind the splintered wood, a square iron hatch was exposed, sealed with a corroded brass bolt.
Overhead, boots clattered at the top of the stairs.
Salvatore jammed the barrel of his pistol into the seam of the latch and wrenched it with raw, furious strength. The oxidized metal groaned, snapped, and the hatch swung open with a screech of rust.
“Go!” Salvatore signed to Tessa.
She dropped to her hands and knees, ignoring the pain as broken glass bit into her palms, and plunged into the cramped, spider-web-filled concrete duct. Salvatore pushed Marco in after her, then squeezed his large frame into the chute just as three men in tactical gear appeared at the bottom of the cellar stairs, weapons raised.
Salvatore pulled the iron door shut behind him and fired two blind rounds through the rusted peek-hole, shattering the bulb in the cellar and plunging the room into pitch-black chaos.
They crawled through twenty yards of narrow, suffocating stone, the air growing warmer as they approached the abandoned boiler room. Tessa kicked open the loose ventilation grate at the far end, tumbling out onto the wet asphalt of the narrow alleyway behind the Italian bakery.
The cold Chicago autumn rain hit her face like a slap of reality.
Salvatore emerged behind her, hauling Marco out into the drizzle. Two black, armored Cadillac Escalades were already screeching to a halt at the mouth of the alley, their headlights cutting through the sheets of rain. Men in dark suits poured out, weapons drawn, forming a protective perimeter around Salvatore.
Marco was helped into the second SUV by two operatives, who immediately began ripping open trauma kits to pack his bullet wound.
Salvatore stood in the rain, his soaked hair plastered against his forehead, his suit ruined, his scar standing out stark and white against his flushed skin. He turned to Tessa, who was shivering violently in her thin server’s uniform, her hands bloody from the crawl through the cellar.
One of the drivers opened the rear door of the lead Escalade and bowed his head. “Boss, we have to move. CPD is three minutes out, and Moretti's people are scrambling.”
Salvatore ignored the man. He stepped up to Tessa, took off his heavy cashmere coat, and wrapped it gently around her shaking shoulders. The fabric was warm and smelled of expensive cedar and faint smoke.
Then he raised his hands in the pouring rain.
“You saved my life tonight, Tessa,” he signed. “Brett told Moretti everything he knew. He told them where I was, and he told them you saw what happened. If you go back to your apartment tonight, you and your brother will be dead before morning.”
Panic seized her throat, worse than the gunfire. “Leo... oh God, Leo is home alone! He doesn't have his hearing aids in when he sleeps—he won't hear them if they kick down the door!”
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Salvatore’s eyes turned to cold, lethal flint. He grabbed her hand, pulled her into the leather interior of the armored SUV, and slammed the door.
He leaned forward, tapped the driver on the shoulder, and threw two violent hand signals. The driver nodded, hit the siren, and the heavy vehicle lunged forward, tires screaming against the wet pavement as they tore into the Chicago night.
