Chapter 6 - The Broken Glass
Inside the chilled chamber sat three slender glass ampoules filled with an iridescent, amber-colored liquid. Beside them rested a handwritten notebook filled with chemical formulations and dosage ratios stamped with the seal of the Novosibirsk Institute.
My hands, which had never shaken during twenty years of executing traitors, trembled slightly as I reached into the case. I secured the three ampoules into a padded velvet casing, tucking the chemical formulas into my breast pocket. Relief, sharp and intoxicating, flooded through my chest.
She was going to live.
“You have it!” Lev sobbed from the floor, clutching his broken nose. “You have what you came for, Moretti! Take it and leave! Let this vendetta die with Viktor!”
I looked down at the pathetic creature cowering at my feet. “The vendetta didn't die with Viktor, Lev. It dies when the Moretti family says it dies.”
I didn't waste a bullet. I gave Marco a slight nod. Marco stepped forward, drew his tactical knife, and ended the last remnant of the Volkov bloodline with a clean, merciless stroke across the throat. There would be no retaliation. There would be no loose ends. When you threaten the wife of Dante Moretti, your entire lineage is erased from existence.
“Contact the pilot,” I ordered Marco, striding through the shattered doors of the nightclub. “Tell him to spool the engines. We need to be back in Chicago before Alina’s morning medications wear off.”
We threw ourselves into our black SUVs, tearing through the predawn streets of Brooklyn toward Teterboro Airport. The amber liquid in my pocket felt like the most precious treasure on the face of the earth. For the first time in three years, the suffocating knot in my chest loosened. I could finally sit Alina down, hold her hands, and tell her that her sacrifice was over. I could give her the love she deserved, unburdened by secrets, unburdened by the shadow of death.
Then, my satellite phone vibrated violently against my hip.
I answered it immediately. “Bennett?”
“Dante!” Bennett’s voice was frantic, accompanied by the high-pitched squeal of heart monitors and alarms blaring in the background. “Where are you?!”
My heart dropped into my stomach. “We’re boarding the jet in New Jersey right now. I have the antidote, Bennett. Three full doses and the original laboratory notes. What’s happening?”
“She had another massive seizure twenty minutes ago,” Bennett shouted over the medical alarms. “Her body went into acute hepatic crisis! Her renal filtration has collapsed completely! Her temperature is at 104 degrees, and she’s hemorrhaging internally into her abdominal cavity!”
“Stabilize her!” I roared into the phone, sprinted up the stairs of the Gulfstream jet, and slammed the hatch shut myself. “Pump whatever blood she needs! Do not let her die, Bennett! If she dies before I get there, I will burn your life to ashes!”
“I’m doing everything humanly possible!” Bennett yelled back, his voice trembling with sheer desperation. “Dante, you have less than three hours! The neural pathways are deteriorating! If the antidote isn't administered intravenously within three hours, the cellular damage will be irreversible! Even if her heart survives, her brain will be completely gone!”
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“Fly!” I screamed at the pilots, kicking the cockpit partition. “Push the turbines to maximum thrust! If the engines blow when we touch the runway, so be it!”
The jet roared down the tarmac, lifting into the gray morning sky with violent acceleration. I sat strapped into the leather seat, clutching the velvet case containing the amber ampoules against my chest, whispering every prayer I had forgotten since my childhood into the cold, empty air of the cabin.
