Chapter 4 - The Outbreak at the Gates
The plastic zip-tie snapped with a dull pop, freeing my bleeding wrists.
I didn't waste a second. Before the two guards at the door realized I was free, I grabbed the aluminum baseball bat Vincent had dropped on the floor and swung it with everything I had into the back of the nearest guard's knees.
He went down with a heavy grunt, his forehead slamming against the concrete frame. The second guard turned, reaching for his sidearm, but I jabbed the butt of the bat directly into his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him in a violent spray of saliva, then brought the metal barrel down across his jaw.
He collapsed like a sack of wet sand.
I snatched my denim jacket off the rack, checking the interior lining to ensure the leather ledger was still secure, and scooped up the guard’s keycard and weapon—a compact 9mm Glock with a night-sight optic.
I didn't run up the stairs toward the main foyer. That was where the gunfire and shouting were coming from. Instead, I ducked into the dark, narrow ventilation access tunnel behind the industrial dryers—a route I had discovered two years ago while tracking a water leak for the maintenance supervisor.
The tunnel was cramped, damp, and smelled of rust and cold soot, but it led straight out to the old carriage house behind the formal gardens, far beyond the primary security fence.
I crawled on my hands and knees through the dark, the leather notebook pressing hard against my ribs with every movement. Above me, the floorboards of the grand mansion shook as federal tactical teams moved room by room through the estate.
When I pushed open the rusting iron grate at the end of the drainage culvert, cold winter air hit my face like a slap.
Snow was falling over Boston, thick, heavy flakes that covered the manicured lawns of the Costello estate in a blanket of white. In the long, winding driveway, blue and red police strobes flashed against the dark pine trees. Four black SUVs were parked across the lawn, their doors flung open as armed federal agents moved toward the main entrance.
In the middle of the driveway, standing beside an armored ambulance, was a sight that made my breath catch in my throat.
Dominic Costello was standing.
He wasn't on a gurney. He wasn't in a wheelchair. He was leaning heavily against the side of the medical vehicle, a thick wool blanket wrapped around his shoulders, his face grey and gaunt, but his posture straight as a iron rail. Beside him stood a tall woman in a sharp grey wool coat holding a federal badge—Agent Sarah Miller of the Department of Justice Organized Crime Task Force.
Dominic wasn't being arrested. He was being evacuated.
He had played them all. The failing organs, the hopeless paralysis, the quiet surrender—he had maintained the charade just long enough to let Julianna and Vincent expose their entire network, using Dr. Pendleton’s poisoned IV as the definitive physical evidence needed to secure a federal wiretap and search warrant.
As I watched from the safety of the tree line, Dominic turned his head slowly toward the carriage house, his sharp gray eyes searching the darkness until they found me standing in the shadow of the weeping willow trees.
He didn't yell. He didn't point.
He raised his right hand—the hand that had held my wrist in the bedroom—and touched two fingers to his temple in a sharp, silent salute.
Then Agent Miller helped him into the back of the armored vehicle, the heavy rear doors slammed shut, and the convoy tore down the driveway with their sirens wailing into the snowy night.
May you like
I pulled my denim jacket tight around my shivering shoulders, felt the heavy outline of the ledger against my ribs, and turned away from the burning lights of the Costello mansion.
The empire had fallen. But the real war for control of the Boston waterfront was just beginning, and I was holding the only blueprint that could stop Julianna Costello from rebuilding it in her own image.
