Chapter 3 - The Tunnels Beneath the Ice
The air inside the underground service tunnel was heavy, damp, and smelled of cold earth and old stone.
Dim yellow bulbs, spaced thirty feet apart, cast long, flickering shadows along the brick walls as we moved rapidly through the narrow passageway. Matteo led the way, his weapon held low and ready at his side, his heavy boots making no sound against the gravel path.
I followed two steps behind, clutching the cedar box against my chest with my left arm while holding Lily’s small, warm hand in my right.
Above us, through five feet of reinforced concrete and soil, the muffled thud-thud-thud of automatic gunfire echoed faintly through the structure. Silas’s men had breached the main estate.
“How far does this tunnel go?” I whispered, my lungs burning as we pushed forward through the dark.
“Two miles east,” Matteo replied without turning his head, his eyes scanning the shadow-draped corridor ahead. “It exits into an abandoned boathouse on the Hudson River. My secondary transport is parked there.”
“Why would Silas do this?” I asked, my voice trembling. “You called him family. You trusted him!”
Matteo let out a low, bitter sound that was more of a growl than a laugh. “In my line of work, 'family' is a title you earn, not a guarantee. Silas has been managing my logistics in New Jersey for six years. He wanted the waterfronts. He knew I would never agree to bring synthetic narcotics through the ports.”
He stopped abruptly at an iron-grated door, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a heavy brass key.
“And three days ago,” Matteo added, slotting the key into the lock, “I discovered he was skimming off the port authority accounts. He knew I was getting ready to remove him. He hit first.”
The lock clicked open. Matteo shoved the heavy iron door inward, stepping into a wider, circular chamber lined with thick concrete pipes.
Suddenly, a bright, blinding beam of light snapped on at the far end of the chamber!
“Going somewhere, Matteo?”
The voice echoed off the damp stone walls—smooth, polished, and drenched in artificial warmth.
Silas stood fifty feet away, dressed in a sharp tailored raincoat, holding a heavy silver revolver. Standing beside him were four men in dark tactical gear, their assault rifles raised and aimed directly at us.
Lily let out a tiny, stifled gasp, hiding her face against my hip.
Matteo didn't flinch. He didn't step back. He simply shifted his stance slightly, placing his body as a barrier between the gun barrels and us.
“You brought tactical gear to a family house, Silas,” Matteo said, his voice dropping into a register so dark it sent a cold shiver down my spine. “You’re getting sloppy in your old age.”
Silas chuckled, stepping forward slowly, his leather shoes crunching on the loose gravel. “Sloppy? I walked through your front gate in ten minutes, Matteo. Your guards are either dead or pinned down in the west wing. The house is mine. The ports are mine. And by midnight, the Commission will recognize me as the head of the Varela family.”
Silas’s eyes drifted past Matteo, locking onto me with a sickening, triumphant smile.
“And you brought Arthur Vance’s daughter with you,” Silas purred softly. “How poetic. I was wondering where little Clara had been hiding all these years.”
My blood ran cold. “You...” I choked out. “You’re the one who killed my father.”
Silas smiled, raising his revolver an inch higher. “Your father was an annoying idealist, my dear. He found out about the offshore accounts. He was going to give Matteo the ledgers. I couldn't let a low-level engineer ruin a twelve-million-dollar deal, could I?”
“He was a better man than you will ever be,” I spat, my knuckles turning white against the cedar box.
“Perhaps,” Silas shrugged smoothly. “But he’s six feet under the Hudson, and you’re standing in a sewer.”
Silas looked back at Matteo, his expression turning cold and businesslike. “Drop the gun, Matteo. Give me the girl, and I’ll make your end quick. I’ll even let the kid live in a private facility somewhere out of state.”
Matteo slowly raised his hands, holding his black pistol by the barrel, as if preparing to drop it to the floor.
“You always missed the small details, Silas,” Matteo said quietly.
Silas frowned. “What?”
“You forgot to ask who built this tunnel,” Matteo said.
Before Silas could react, Matteo slammed his heavy boot into a rusted iron valve pipe on the wall beside him!
CRACK!
The thick steel pipe ruptured under intense hydraulic pressure! High-pressure steam and freezing river water exploded into the circular chamber, filling the space with a deafening roar and a thick, impenetrable wall of white mist!
“SHOOT THEM!” Silas screamed wildly into the fog!
Automatic weapons roared, bullets whistling wildly through the steam, ricocheting off the concrete walls with terrifying metallic sparks!
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Matteo didn't fire back. He grabbed my jacket collar with one hand and Lily with the other, dragging us violently to the left through an unlit emergency drainage hatch set deep into the floor!
We tumbled down a steep concrete slide, plunging ten feet into the cold, pitch-black darkness below as the heavy iron hatch slammed shut above us, cutting off the gunfire instantly.
