Chapter 5 - The Siege of Elmwood StreetThe air in the cramped apartment turned glacial.
Moretti.
They had followed me here. Or worse—they had been tracking Maya all along, and my reckless sprint through Grant Park and the subway station had handed them her location on a silver platter.
"What is it?" Maya asked, her sharp instincts reading the sudden shift in my posture. The color drained completely from her face. "Why do you look like that?"
"Get down," I ordered, my voice shifting instantly from personal anguish to lethal, tactical command. I drew the suppressed 9mm pistol from the concealed holster beneath my tailored jacket with terrifying fluidity.
"What are you doing? Put that away, there are children here!" Maya screamed, scrambling backward as she covered the triplets with her own body.
"Maya, listen to me very carefully," I said, stepping toward the window and peering through the cracked blinds down onto the street below.
Two matte-black SUVs had just pulled up erratically to the curb outside number 412. Four men in heavy tactical gear, faces hidden behind reinforced ceramic masks, piled out of the vehicles. Heavy automatic rifles were unslung from their shoulders in practiced synchronization.
The Moretti clean-up crew.
"They followed me," I muttered, cursing myself with a string of violent oaths. My arrogance had led a pack of wolves straight to my children's doorstep.
"Who?" Maya whispered, terror paralyzing her limbs. "Adrian, who is outside?"
"Men who want me dead—and now, anyone connected to me," I snapped, holstering my weapon for a fraction of a second as I scanned the room for exits. The front door was a death trap; the stairwell was too exposed. "Where does the fire escape lead?"
"To the alley," she stammered, grabbing her crying daughter into her arms while pulling the two boys up by their tiny hands. "The alley connects to the back parking lot."
"Move. Now."
I kicked open the rusted metal window leading to the fire escape, the glass shattering outward in a shower of glittering shards. Shouts echoed from the hallway downstairs—heavy boots stomping up the wooden steps.
They were already on the second floor.
"Go, Maya! Out the window!" I grabbed the metal railing, helping her push the heavy triple stroller toward the fire escape exit, while she clutched the little girl.
"I can't get the stroller down these stairs by myself!" Maya cried, tears blinding her.
"Leave the stroller!" I barked, grabbing both boys by the waist and hoisting them effortlessly into my arms. "Hold onto my coat!"
"I can't leave their things, our entire life is in there—"
"Maya, if you don't move right now, we all die!"
A deafening crash echoed inside the apartment as the front door was kicked off its hinges. Splintered wood flew across the living room floor.
"Vale! We know you're in here!" a deep, electronically distorted voice shouted from the hallway.
May you like
"Go!" I shoved Maya through the window onto the metal platform of the fire escape, following immediately behind her with the two boys.
Bullets punched through the apartment's interior walls, drywall exploding in a blizzard of white dust and shredded insulation as the Moretti gunmen opened fire blindly through the partition.
