Chapter 55 The Hostage
"Nobody moves or the whore dies!"
Dante's arm was iron around Cedric's throat. Crushing. The gun barrel pressed cold against his temple, hard enough to bruise bone.
Cedric couldn't breathe. Couldn't think past the pressure on his windpipe and the metal kiss promising obliteration.
Gianni's gun came up. Aimed. But his hands, his hands were shaking.
Too much risk. Too close. One wrong move and…
"Let him go, Dante!"
Marcus. Voice cutting through the chaos, SWAT team fanning out behind him. Red laser sights painting the warehouse walls like fireflies.
"It's over!"
Dante's chest vibrated with laughter against Cedric's back. Manic. Unhinged.
"Over? This is just beginning!" His arm tightened. Cedric's vision sparked. "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with, Detective Chen?"
"I know exactly who you are."
Marcus's voice shook. Cedric could hear it even through the ringing in his ears.
"Dante Falcone. Supposed to be dead. Executed fifteen years ago for murdering a cop."
A pause. Heavy as a held breath.
"For murdering MY father."
The warehouse went silent.
Cedric's lungs burned. He tried to pull air through the vise of Dante's arm but got nothing. Black spots danced.
He was going to pass out. Was going to die here before anyone even pulled a trigger.
Somewhere to his left, a SWAT officer shifted position. The scrape of boots on concrete echoed like thunder. Dante jerked, pressing the gun harder. Cedric tasted bile.
"Stay back!" Dante's voice pitched higher. "I swear to God, I'll blow his brains all over this fucking floor!"
The pressure on Cedric's throat eased fractionally. Just enough for him to drag in half a breath. The air tasted like oil and rust and fear.
"Marcus."
Gianni's voice. Still aimed. Still steady despite the tremor in his hands.
"Let me handle this. Put your weapons down and let me talk to my brother."
"Talk?"
Dante's voice climbed.
"TALK? You want to talk about how you betrayed everything? How you chose THIS…"
He shook Cedric violently. Cedric's head snapped back, teeth clacking together. Tasted copper.
"...over your own blood?"
The world spun. Cedric's knees buckled but Dante held him up, arm crushing harder. Like he was trying to squeeze the life out of him slowly. Make it last.
Air. He needed air. His vision was tunneling, going grey at the edges.
Through the haze, he saw Gianni. Really saw him. The man who'd pulled him from the gutter, who'd put him in silk shirts and penthouses and beds that smelled like expensive cologne. The man who'd looked at him like he was something precious.
The man who was about to watch him die.
Fuck that.
"If you're going to kill me…"
His voice came out crushed. Barely human.
"...just do it. Stop fucking talking about it."
The gun pressed harder. Grinding into his skull.
"Brave words for someone who's about to die."
Cedric's pulse hammered against the inside of his skull. Each beat felt like it might be the last. He could feel Dante's breath on his neck, hot and sour with rage.
Marcus took a step forward. Slow. Hands raised, weapon pointed at the ceiling.
"Your brother didn't kill my father."
Another step.
"You did. Just you. And I've spent fifteen years trying to bring down the wrong Falcone because I thought you were dead."
"And yet here I am."
Dante's smile, Cedric couldn't see it but could hear it in his voice. Something broken in it. Something that had died a long time ago and been walking around anyway.
"Disappointed?"
His finger shifted on the trigger. Cedric felt the movement. Infinitesimal. Final.
Time crystallized. Every sound sharp enough to cut. The rasp of Gianni's breathing. The hum of fluorescent lights overhead. Someone's radio crackling static.
"Dante, please."
Gianni's voice cracked.
"You want to punish me? Fine. Shoot me. But he's innocent in this. He didn't choose our life. I forced it on him."
For a second, just a heartbeat, Dante's grip loosened. Like the words had actually landed. Like somewhere in the wreckage of whatever he'd become, there was still a brother who gave a shit.
Then it was gone.
"Oh, I'm not going to shoot you, brother."
The arm around Cedric's throat shifted. The gun barrel started to move.
"I'm going to make you watch."
Slow motion.
The world crystallized into fractured seconds. Cedric could see everything with perfect, terrible clarity.
The gun swinging away from his temple.
Downward.
Toward his chest. His heart. Center mass.
Dante's finger tightening.
Two seconds. Maybe less.
Cedric slammed his head backward.
The impact was sickening. Cartilage crunched. Hot blood sprayed across the back of his neck.
Dante screamed.
The arm loosened.
Just enough.
Cedric dropped. Rolled. His shoulder hit concrete hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.
Three shots fired.
The sound was apocalyptic. Deafening. The world went white with noise.
Then chaos.
Shouting. Screaming. Boots pounding concrete. Someone yelling "Officer down!" but that didn't make sense because…
Cedric's ears rang. High-pitched whine drowning everything else. He tried to push himself up but his arms wouldn't cooperate.
Movement. Someone running.
Gianni.
His mouth was moving but Cedric couldn't hear the words. Just the ringing. Just the endless, hollow whine.
He saw Dante.
On the ground. Red spreading beneath him in a pool that looked black in the warehouse lights. His eyes were open. Staring.
Not moving.
Marcus stood ten feet away. Weapon lowered. Face the color of old paper. Shell casings glinted at his feet like scattered coins.
Something felt wrong.
Cedric tried to sit up. His left side…
Cold. Why was it cold. The warehouse was hot, too many bodies, too much adrenaline.
He looked down.
Red.
Spreading across the black fabric of his shirt. Darker than Dante's pool. Wet and warm and wrong.
His hand came away sticky. He stared at his palm. At the crimson pooling in the lines like some fucked-up fortune.
"Oh."
His voice sounded far away.
"I've been shot."
The world tilted.
Hands caught him. Gianni's face filled his vision. Mouth still moving. Eyes wide and desperate and terrified.
Everything was getting fuzzy. Soft around the edges like a photograph left in the sun.
The ringing faded.
Sound rushed back.
"...edric! Cedric, look at me, look at me, baby, please…"
Gianni's voice. Raw. Breaking.
"Stay with me, stay with me, don't you fucking dare die on me…"
Cedric tried to answer but his tongue felt too heavy. The warehouse ceiling swam above him. Exposed beams and dust motes floating in the light.
Beautiful, almost.
His eyes drifted closed.
"No! No, keep them open, Cedric, goddammit…"
But it was easier to let go.
Easier to sink into the darkness waiting underneath.
Somewhere distant, sirens wailed.