Not after he had walked into the lion’s den to dismantle the network that had poisoned Chicago for decades.
A sudden, catastrophic explosion rocked the shaft.
The vibration was so violent that the ladder tore three inches out of the upper brickwork with a sickening screech of snapping iron.
Emma swung wildly into empty space, dangling by her left hand over the black void.
A scream ripped from her throat as her feet kicked frantically against empty air.
Below, the water surged violently.
The explosion had breached the retaining wall.
The Chicago River was pouring into the freight tunnels.
“Vincent!” she screamed, her voice lost in the roaring vortex of water below.
Gritting her teeth, she lunged upward with her right hand, catching the next rung by her fingertips.
The rusted metal bit into her flesh, tearing the skin, but she held on.
With a violent heave of her core, she pulled her torso back against the wall, finding purchase with the toe of her shoe on a cracked brick.
She climbed faster now, driven by sheer terror.
Ten rungs.
Twenty rungs.
Her head bumped against solid iron.
She reached up, feeling the circular utility hatch above her.
Just as Vincent had said, a heavy steel pipe wrench was lashed to the final rung with rotting twine.
Emma snapped the twine with a desperate yank, freeing the heavy tool.
Bracing her shoulders against the iron rung behind her, she swung the heavy wrench upward with both hands, striking the rusted brass padlock securing the hatch.
Clang!
The sound reverberated through her skull, but the lock held.
She swung again, putting every ounce of her despair and rage into the strike.
Clang!
A crack appeared along the tumbler.
Below her, the sound of gunfire had ceased completely.
There was only the terrifying, deafening roar of rushing water, rising at a catastrophic speed up the vertical shaft.
The spray was already hitting her shoes.
“Come on!” she screamed, swinging a third time.
With a sharp snap, the brass shackle sheared off.
Emma dropped the wrench, shoved the heavy cast-iron circular plate upward with both shoulders, and hauled herself out of the shaft into the blinding fluorescent glare of a concrete electrical room.
She collapsed onto the dry, painted concrete, gasping for air, her lungs burning with the smell of ozone and hydraulic fluid.
Behind her, the opening of the hatch vomited a vertical plume of gray, churning river water.
Emma turned around, crawling toward the lip of the hole on her hands and knees.
The water was boiling at the brim, drowning the shaft completely.
“No…” she whispered, tears cutting clean tracks through the soot on her face.
“No, no, no…
Vincent!”
Chapter 57 – Blood on the Surface
The door to the electrical room burst open with a crash.
Emma scrambled backward, curling into a defensive ball against an industrial transformer unit, expecting Matteo’s executioners.
But the men entering were not wearing private tactical gear.
They wore gray windbreakers with bold yellow lettering across their backs: FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION.
Leading them was an older man with silver hair cut high and tight, holding an unholstered service pistol, his eyes sharp behind wire-rimmed glasses.
Behind him were six tactical agents with shotguns and ballistic shields.
“Secure the perimeter!
Cut the main conduit!” the lead man barked, his voice carrying the authority of thirty years in federal service.
Then his eyes fell upon Emma Ward, huddled in the corner, soaked in river muck, wearing Vincent Moretti’s oversized overcoat.
He lowered his weapon instantly.
“Emma Ward?”
Emma stared at him through wild, disheveled hair, her chest hitching in breathless sobs.
“Who are you?”
“Special Agent Miller,” the man said, kneeling beside her and pulling a radio from his vest.
“Stand down, team!
We have the witness!
Call the medic unit to the west dock!”
He looked at Emma with profound relief.
“Where is Moretti?
He sent the emergency transponder signal from this sector four minutes ago.”
Emma pointed a trembling, bloodstained finger toward the bubbling, flooded utility hatch.
“He’s down there…
The tunnel collapsed.
The river… the river came in.”
Miller cursed under his breath, lunging to the edge of the shaft.
He peered down into the churning, murky water, his face hardening into granite.
“He lured them into the river breach,” Miller muttered to himself, understanding the calculation in an instant.
“He knew the retaining wall would give.”
“Is he dead?”
Emma choked out, grabbing Miller’s sleeve with frantic desperation.
“Tell me he’s not dead!”
Before Miller could answer, the surface of the boiling water in the shaft broke with a violent splash.
A hand—scarred, bloodied, and dripping with black oil—shot out of the water, clamping onto the steel lip of the floor with crushing strength.
