Chapter 15 Chapter Fifteen
The descent was a blur of concrete and shadows. Every few floors, we encountered Yakuza guards. Matteo handled them with a cold, mechanical efficiency that made my stomach turn. He didn't hesitate. He didn't waste a single bullet. He was a machine of war, and I was the cargo.
We reached the fortieth floor when the stairs above us exploded.
Kaito was standing on the landing, holding a high-caliber rifle. He looked disheveled, his blond hair matted with blood, but his eyes were fixed on me.
"You aren't leaving this building, Russo!" Kaito shouted. "The Yamaguchi-gumi owns this city! You’re a mosquito in a spider's web!"
Matteo pushed me into the alcove of the doorway. "Stay there."
He stepped out into the stairwell, his gun held low. "You talk too much, Kaito. In Sicily, we let the lead do the talking."
Kaito fired. The bullet chipped the concrete inches from Matteo’s head. Matteo returned fire, the two of them trading shots across the vertical gap of the stairwell.
I looked around. There was a fire axe in a glass case on the wall.
I didn't think. I grabbed a heavy metal trash can and smashed the glass. I gripped the handle of the axe, the weight of it surprising me.
I looked at the floorboards. This was an old section of the building, the concrete reinforced with steel, but the pipes were exposed.
I swung the axe with everything I had, hitting a thick, high-pressure steam pipe.
A deafening hiss filled the stairwell as a cloud of scalding white steam erupted, obscuring everything.
Kaito screamed as the steam hit him.
Matteo didn't wait. He charged through the white cloud. I heard a dull thud, the sound of a struggle, and then the sickening crack of bone.
When the steam cleared, Matteo was standing over Kaito. The blond man was slumped against the railing, his face unrecognizable. Matteo didn't kill him. He just took Kaito’s radio and tossed it down the center of the stairwell.
"He's the message," Matteo said, looking at me. "Let the Oyabun see what happens when he touches a Russo bride."
He grabbed my hand, his grip crushing. "Come on. The extraction team is on the roof."
"The roof?" I asked. "We’re going up?"
"The stairs are blocked below. The Loyalists have a bird waiting."
We ran back up the stairs, my lungs burning, my legs screaming. But I didn't stop. The adrenaline was a fire in my veins, fueled by the knowledge that I wasn't just a debt anymore. I was a player in a game that spanned the globe.
We reached the roof just as a massive, matte-black helicopter crested the edge of the building. It had no markings, but the side door was open, and a man in a silver-lily patch was manning a mounted machine gun.
Matteo hauled me toward the chopper.
"Lila!"
I turned. Standing by the rooftop door was a man I hadn't seen in six months. He looked older, his hair graying at the temples, wearing a simple linen suit that looked out of place in the high-tech nightmare of Tokyo.
My father.
Enzo Moreno stood there, holding a small black briefcase. He didn't look like a thief. He looked like a man who had been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders for far too long.
"Dad?" I whispered.
"Get in the helicopter, Lila!" Enzo shouted over the roar of the blades. "It's not over! The code... they have the secondary relay! You have to leave!"
Matteo stepped between me and my father, his gun leveled at Enzo’s chest.
"You have a lot to answer for, Moreno," Matteo growled.
"I know," Enzo said, his eyes filled with tears as he looked at me. "But the Russos aren't the enemy today. The Valentis sold the sequence to a third party. A group in Tokyo wasn't the end. It was the beginning."
Suddenly, a second helicopter appeared from behind a neighboring skyscraper. This one was white, with a corporate logo I didn't recognize. It began firing on the roof.
"Go!" Enzo screamed, diving for cover behind a ventilation unit.
Matteo grabbed me and threw me into the back of the black helicopter. He jumped in after me, shouting at the pilot.
As the chopper pulled away from the roof, I saw my father stand up and wave a hand. Not in goodbye, but in a signal.
The entire top floor of the obsidian skyscraper erupted in a series of controlled demolitions. The building didn't fall, but the penthouse, the Garden of Shadows was turned into a fireball.
I watched as the skyscraper receded into the distance, the smoke rising into the neon-lit sky of Tokyo.
I was safe. For now.
I looked at Matteo. He was sitting on the floor of the chopper, his head leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. He looked exhausted, but his hand was still firmly clamped over mine.
"He’s alive," I said. "My father."
"He's a ghost," Matteo muttered without opening his eyes. "And ghosts are hard to kill."
He opened one eye and looked at me. "You used an axe."
"You said everything is a weapon."
Matteo leaned forward and kissed me. It wasn't a brutal or possessive kiss. It was a kiss of relief, of a man who had walked through hell to find the one thing he couldn't live without.
"You're a Russo," he whispered against my lips. "God help the world."
I looked out the window at the Pacific Ocean stretching out before us.
The "Tokyo" chapter was closed, but the fire was still spreading. I could feel the code in my blood, a secret that half the world was willing to kill for.
I touched the locket around my neck.
I wasn't a dancer from Palermo anymore.
I was the Flame.
And as the helicopter flew into the rising sun, I realized that the debt hadn't been settled at all. It had just been transferred to a new account.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Matteo looked at the pilot, then back at me.
"Home," he said. "To finish what your father started."
But I knew "home" wasn't a place anymore.
Home was the man with the scars on his chest and the woman with the code in her veins.
And the war was only just beginning.