Chapter 9 - Ambush at St. Jude's
At 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, the calm shattered.
Dante had arranged for Elena and Lily to be transferred to the Westchester estate early, using a three-car decoy convoy leaving from the front gate. The real transfer vehicle—an unmarked black Suburban with level-seven ballistic armor—was parked in the underground garage of St. Jude’s Catholic Church on 76th Street, accessible via a private tunnel connected to the mansion’s sub-basement.
Dante walked with Elena and Lily through the arched brick tunnel, lit by bare incandescent bulbs. Marco led the way, his sidearm drawn, sweeping the damp shadows.
“We’ll take the parkway north,” Marco explained, keeping his voice low. “Two scout cars are already patrolling the route. No tail. No radio traffic.”
They reached the heavy iron fire door leading into the church’s subterranean parking structure. Marco keyed the electronic pad.
The door swung outward.
The sharp, deafening crack of a high-caliber rifle bullet ricocheted off the iron frame, spraying sparks across Dante’s face.
“Down!” Dante roared, throwing his entire body over Elena and Lily, slamming them down onto the concrete floor of the tunnel.
Marco fired three blind rounds through the gap, then hauled the iron door shut, throwing the mechanical deadlock into place. Heavy rounds hammered against the steel from the other side like iron hail. *Clang! Clang! Clang!*
“How many?” Dante shouted over the din, keeping his weight braced over the trembling woman and child.
“Three! Maybe four!” Marco yelled, dropping his empty magazine and slapping a fresh one home. “They aren't Victor’s men! Tactical gear, suppressed weapons—Chicago! Duca sent his own cleaning crew to make sure Victor didn't leave any witnesses!”
Elena was hyperventilating, her arms locked around Lily, who was pressed tight against Dante’s chest. The little girl wasn't crying. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the steel door as the bullets dented the quarter-inch plate.
“Dante,” Lily whispered, her small voice cutting through the gunfire with impossible clarity. “The ceiling.”
Dante looked up.
Above them, running along the tunnel roof, was the four-inch industrial natural gas line feeding the church’s heating boilers. Right beside the iron door was an emergency shut-off valve with a heavy red iron lever.
Dante looked at Marco. “Marco! The service crawlway behind us! Take Elena and Lily back toward the mansion wine cellar! Go! Now!”
“Boss, I’m not leaving you!” Marco snarled.
“Move them!” Dante bellowed, an order so savage it brooked no defiance.
Marco grabbed Elena by the arm, hauling her backward into the crawlway. Elena looked back at Dante, her eyes filled with desperate, agonizing terror.
“Dante!” she screamed.
“Run, Elena!” Dante ordered. “Keep Lily safe!”
The iron door groaned. The hinges were buckling under the impact of a breaching ram from the parking garage.
Dante drew his Sig Sauer. He stepped back ten paces, leveling the weapon not at the door, but at the brass coupling of the high-pressure gas main right above the threshold.
The door gave way with an ear-splitting shriek of tearing metal.
Two heavily armed operators clad in black tactical gear burst through the opening, assault rifles raised, sweeping the tunnel.
Dante fired four rounds in rapid succession.
Two rounds took the lead operator through the neck, dropping him instantly. The third and fourth rounds struck the brass gas coupling above the door.
A deafening hiss of pressurized methane erupted into the tunnel, forming a white fog. Dante pulled a magnesium emergency road flare from his tactical belt, struck the igniter, and hurled it toward the doorway.
“Fire in the hole!” Dante roared, diving backward into the reinforced concrete alcove of the crawlway.
The resulting fireball consumed the tunnel entrance in an apocalyptic roar of orange flame and overpressure. The shockwave threw Dante against the brick wall, knocking the wind from his lungs, but the heavy steel fire baffle he had pulled across the alcove shielded him from the brunt of the explosion.
The screams of the second assassin were cut short as the roof of the church parking garage collapsed under the blast, burying the entrance under three tons of rubble and burning concrete.
Dante coughed, dragging himself upright through the dense gray smoke. His ears were ringing, his face black with soot, his knuckles bleeding.
He turned into the crawlway and ran.
He reached the heavy oak door of the mansion wine cellar, throwing it open.
Marco was there, weapon raised, but lowered it instantly as Dante stumbled through. Elena stood in the center of the vault, clutching Lily to her chest.
When she saw Dante—battered, covered in soot and blood, but alive—she let out a cry that was half sob, half battle roar. She ran across the stone floor, throwing her arms around his neck, burying her face into his soot-stained shoulder.
Dante stiffened in shock for half a second before his arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight against his chest. He felt the wild, terrified gallop of her heart, the warmth of her breath against his throat, and the absolute reality that she was unharmed.
Lily walked up beside them, reached into her pocket, and produced a clean white handkerchief with a yellow flower embroidered in the corner.
She offered it to Dante.
“You have soot on your nose,” she said solemnly.
Dante slowly lowered Elena, keeping one arm around her waist, and took the handkerchief from the child. He wiped his face, then looked down at the little girl who had spotted the gas line above the door.
“Lily,” Dante whispered, his voice hoarse from smoke. “You are the greatest soldier this family has ever seen.”
He looked up at Marco. The Don of New York was back, his eyes burning with an unholy, absolute fury.
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“Reschedule the summit,” Dante commanded. “Not for Thursday. Tonight. 10:00 p.m. At the Mott Street restaurant. Tell Duca and Chicago that if they aren't sitting at that oak table when I walk through the door, I will burn their operations from Manhattan to Lake Michigan before the sun rises.”
***
