Chapter 5 - The Flame in the Dark
An hour later, a fleet of three unmarked black sedans pulled up into the rusted alleyway behind the abandoned St. Jude Textile Factory.
The building was a sprawling, five-story brick monster with broken glass windows and towering smokestacks that looked like jagged teeth against the foggy night sky.
Jack Mercer led the entry team, cutting through the heavy iron chain lock on the side door with hydraulic bolt cutters. The heavy metal door creaked open, exposing a cavernous interior filled with the ghostly shapes of giant looms, rusted dye vats, and suspended iron pipes.
The smell inside was overwhelming—a rank, nauseating stench of old copper, sulfur, and burned almonds.
“It’s the same smell,” Emily whispered, pulling her coat collar up over her nose as she walked between Mason and Jack. “This is where they mixed the dye for the black thread.”
Mason kept his hand near his holster, his eyes scanning the shadow-drenched catwalks above. “Keep your eyes open. Thomas knows we need this ledger. He won't leave it unguarded.”
They moved up the iron spiral staircase toward the third-floor administrative offices.
Inside the main executive suite, behind a massive steel wall safe concealed behind a faded portrait of the factory’s founders, Jack used an electronic bypass device to crack the digital combination.
The heavy safe door swung open.
Inside lay three thick, black-bound ledger books stamped with the emblem of Apex Industrial, along with row upon row of glass vials containing the dark, sticky poison cord.
“We got it,” Jack said, pulling the ledgers out and stuffing them into a tactical duffel bag. “This is enough to freeze every offshore account Thomas owns and put his entire syndicate behind bars for three lifetimes.”
Suddenly, the heavy iron doors of the office slammed shut with a deafening bang.
The mechanical click of an automatic lock echoed through the metal frames.
Over the factory’s old, crackling loudspeaker system, a raspy, familiar voice echoed through the dark room.
“You always were predictable, Mason,” Thomas Vance’s voice sneered through the static. “Did you really think I’d leave those ledgers sitting in a safe without a fail-safe?”
Mason lunged toward the reinforced door, throwing his broad shoulder against it, but the heavy steel didn't budge.
“Look out the window, Mason,” Thomas mocked over the speaker. “You brought the little maid back to where her mother died. How poetic. In three minutes, the chemical storage tanks on the ground floor will ignite. A chemical fire burns at two thousand degrees. Not even your loyal enforcer will find your bones.”
A low, rumbling explosion shuddered through the floorboards beneath their feet.
Thick, greenish-black smoke began pouring out of the ventilation shafts, carrying the deadly organophosphate fumes into the room.
“Jack! The window!” Mason barked, pulling his shirt up over his mouth as he coughed violently.
The office windows were covered in heavy iron security grates bolted deep into the brickwork. Jack drew his gun and fired six rounds into the iron hinges, but the heavy steel frames barely bent.
The toxic smoke was rising fast, cutting off their oxygen.
Emily fell to her knees, coughing as the familiar, terrifying burning filled her throat—the exact same chemical torture that had stolen her mother’s breath.
Mason dropped to his knees beside her. He grabbed a heavy fire extinguisher from the wall, slammed it against the glass, and shattered the pane.
“Mason... no...” Emily gasped, reaching for his arm. “Your shoulder... you’ll tear the muscle again!”
“Hold on to me!” Mason yelled.
Ignoring the agonizing white-hot pain ripping through his healing shoulder, Mason raised the eighty-pound iron fire extinguisher over his head like a titan of old. With a guttural, roaring scream of pure defiance, he slammed the iron cylinder directly into the center of the security grate.
CRACK!
The mortar gave way. The iron grate tore free from the brickwork, plunging three stories down into the alleyway below.
“Jack, take her!” Mason ordered, his shirt soaked in fresh blood from his re-opened shoulder wound.
Jack grabbed Emily, slinging her over his shoulder as he leaped onto the fire escape outside just as a massive fireball erupted from the lower floor, blowing the office doors off their hinges in a wall of roaring orange flame.
Mason tumbled out onto the iron fire escape behind them, the heat scorching his back as the entire factory went up in an inferno of toxic chemical fire.
They stumbled down the iron ladders into the alley below just as the building’s roof collapsed in a shower of sparks.
Mason hit the wet gravel on his knees, gasping for fresh air, his right arm trembling violently as blood soaked through his shirt once more.
Emily rushed to his side, sliding onto her knees in the mud. She tore a strip of cloth from her own skirt and pressed it hard against his bleeding shoulder.
“You saved me again,” she sobbed, holding his face in her hands as the roaring flames reflected in her tear-filled eyes.
May you like
Mason looked at her through the haze of smoke and pain. Slowly, his blood-stained left hand reached up, gently wiping a streak of black soot from her cheek.
“I told you, Emily,” Mason rasped, his voice filled with fierce, unshakeable tenderness. “No one hurts you again. Not while I’m breathing.”
