17: The Devil’s Exit

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

POV: Dante Moretti

The Cathedral was no longer a house of prayer; it was a chimney. Thick, acrid smoke from the burning sedans outside rolled through the shattered stained-glass windows, mixing with the dust of pulverized marble. The sirens were close too close. In this city, the police were on the payroll, but a triple car bombing and a shootout in a historic landmark forced their hand. They had to play the heroes tonight.

"Marco! Sound the retreat!" I barked over the roar of the flames.

"Enzo’s men are already at the perimeter, Boss! SWAT is two blocks out!" Marco shouted back from the choir loft, his team rappelling down the stone pillars with practiced fluidly.

I looked at Julian. He was standing in the center of the wreckage, his chest heaving, the silver-plated Beretta still smoking in his hand. He looked like a fallen angel standing in the ruins of paradise. There was a splattering of blood across his cheek Mateo’s blood,, and his eyes were wide, fixed on the body of his brother.

"Julian," I said, my voice low but sharp enough to pierce his shock. "We have to move. Now."

I grabbed his arm, but he didn't move. He was staring at Marcus, who lay slumped against the base of the altar.

"Is he dead?" Julian whispered.

"It doesn't matter," I said, pulling him toward the sacristy. "The fire will finish what the blast started. If we’re here when the sirens stop, the contract won't matter. No lawyer in the city can fix this."

I hauled him through the heavy velvet curtains and into the small, cramped room where the priests kept their vestments. Behind a massive oak wardrobe was a stone archway the Judas Gate. It was an ancient maintenance tunnel that connected the Cathedral to the city's 19th-century sewer system, a secret known only to the architects and the men who bought them.

"Down," I commanded, shoving him into the dark opening.

We descended a narrow, spiral staircase made of damp, slippery stone. The air here was cold and smelled of wet earth and old iron. Above us, we heard the muffled thump of the Cathedral doors being breached. The police were inside.

"Flashlights," I hissed.

Marco and three of my elite guards clicked on their tactical lights, cutting through the absolute blackness of the tunnel. We ran. The ground was uneven, slick with a century of condensation. Julian stumbled, his dress shoes never intended for a subterranean escape, but he didn't complain. He gripped the back of my coat, his breathing ragged but determined.

After ten minutes of sprinting through the narrow stone arteries, the tunnel opened into a wider brick expanse the main storm drain.

"This leads to the river outlet near Pier 12," Marco whispered. "The boat is waiting."

"Wait," Julian said, stopping suddenly. He pulled his hand away from my coat. "Dante, listen."

I signaled for silence. We stood perfectly still in the dark, the sound of dripping water echoing like a slow-motion clock. Then, I heard it. A metallic clack-clack. The sound of boots on a ladder. Not behind us ahead of us.

"They blocked the exit," I whispered, drawing my secondary weapon. "The Irish. They weren't neutral. They were waiting to see who walked out of the church so they could finish the job."

"How many?" Julian asked, his voice regaining that cold, analytical edge I had come to crave.

"At least six," Marco said, checking his thermal scope. "They’re set up at the junction 200 yards ahead. They have a tripod-mounted LMG. We walk into that, and we’re minced meat."

I looked at the map in my head. The sewer system was a labyrinth, but we were trapped in a straight line. Unless...

"The overflow valve," I said, looking at the ceiling. "There’s a maintenance hatch that leads up into the basement of the old Old Bell Distillery. It’s a two-block crawl through the crawlspace, but it bypasses the junction."

"The distillery is Vane property," Julian said, a grim smile touching his lips. "Or it was. It’s been abandoned for years. I used to hide there when I was a kid to get away from Leo's temper."

"Can you find the hatch?" I asked.

"In the dark? I could find it blindfolded."

Julian took the lead. It was a surreal role reversal the Prince leading the Butcher through the bowels of the city. He moved with a sudden, lithe confidence, his hand tracing the brickwork until he found a rusted iron rung embedded in the wall.

"Here," he whispered.

We climbed. The crawlspace was barely three feet high, a suffocating tube of dust and cobwebs. We moved on our hands and knees, the sound of the Irish mercenaries' voices echoing faintly from the tunnels below. They were confused, wondering where we had vanished.

Finally, Julian pushed up on a heavy wooden trapdoor. It groaned but gave way. We scrambled up into a room filled with the ghostly shapes of old copper stills and rotting grain barrels. The distillery was silent, the moonlight filtering through the high, broken windows in long, silver spears.

Julian stood up, brushing the thick dust from his charcoal suit. He looked at me, his face half-hidden in shadow.

"We’re out," he said.

I walked over to him, the adrenaline finally beginning to subside, replaced by a deep, throbbing heat. I didn't care about the Irish. I didn't care about the police. I reached out and grabbed his waist, pulling him flush against me.

"You led us out of the grave, Julian," I murmured, my hand moving to the back of his neck, my thumb tracing the line of his jaw.

"I told you," he whispered, his hands sliding up to my shoulders, his fingers digging into the heavy fabric of my coat. "I’m the one who makes you immortal. You handle the blood, Dante. I’ll handle the way out."

I leaned in, our lips inches apart. The air between us was electric, the shared danger of the night acting as an aphrodisiac more potent than any drug. "The city is going to be in chaos by morning. The Vanes are gone. The Jimenez are gone. The vacuum is ours to fill."

"Then let's fill it," Julian said.

He pulled me down into a kiss that tasted of dust, copper, and absolute victory. In the ruins of his family’s old distillery, beneath the watchful eyes of a city that was about to burn, the contract was forgotten. There was no longer a buyer and an asset.

There was only us.