Chapter 9 - THE BALLROOM TRAP
Anthony Caruso smiled at Dominic.
"You look like your father."
Dominic didn't move.
"Last words?"
Caruso laughed.
"Exactly like him."
Father Thomas held his pistol steady.
The priest's collar was gone.
Without it, he seemed smaller.
Older.
Less holy.
Clara looked from Thomas to Caruso.
"My father trusted you."
Thomas's expression tightened.
"Michael trusted everyone too much."
"No."
Clara's voice was weak but clear.
"He trusted Salvatore. He trusted Isabella. He warned me about you."
Thomas's eyes changed.
That pleased her.
Victor snapped his fingers.
Two men dragged Ellen to her feet.
Clara instinctively moved.
Dominic caught her arm.
"Ledger," Victor said.
Clara held it tighter.
"Release my mother first."
Victor smiled.
"Negotiating. Definitely Michael's daughter."
"Mom first."
"No."
"Then no ledger."
Victor raised his gun toward Ellen.
Clara stopped breathing.
Dominic's voice was calm.
"Kill her and Clara burns the ledger."
Victor looked at him.
"You wouldn't let her."
"Try me."
For several seconds, the most dangerous men in the ballroom stared at one another.
Then Victor lowered the weapon slightly.
"Give the ledger to Thomas."
Clara looked at Dominic.
He gave the smallest nod.
She stepped forward.
Every wound in her body screamed.
Thomas approached.
Clara held out the binder.
He reached.
She dropped it.
Thomas instinctively bent down.
Dominic moved.
His elbow slammed into Caruso's throat.
Clara kicked the ledger under a table.
Gunfire erupted.
Ellen threw herself sideways.
Enzo's men burst from the upper balconies.
The chandelier exploded.
Glass rained down.
Dominic drove Caruso into a column.
Thomas fired.
The bullet grazed Dominic's shoulder.
Clara grabbed Ellen and pulled her behind the overturned banquet table.
"Mom!"
Ellen wrapped her arms around her.
Clara nearly collapsed.
"You're alive."
"So are you."
"Debatable."
Ellen sobbed into her hair.
Victor's men opened fire from the service hallway.
Rossi guards returned fire.
The ballroom became war.
Clara reached beneath her vest.
Dominic had given her one small pistol.
"Do you know how to use that?" Ellen shouted.
"No!"
"Wonderful!"
Clara looked around the table.
Father Thomas was moving toward them.
Gun raised.
Clara pointed hers.
Her hands shook.
Thomas stopped.
"You won't."
Clara stared at him.
"No."
He smiled.
"Michael hated guns."
"He did."
Clara's finger rested on the trigger.
"He also hated priests who murdered his friends."
Thomas's smile disappeared.
"Put it down."
"Where's the recording?"
His eyes flickered.
Clara saw it.
"Dominic!" she shouted.
Thomas lunged.
Clara fired.
The bullet struck his leg.
He collapsed with a scream.
Clara stared at the weapon in horror.
Ellen grabbed it from her.
"You did what you had to."
Thomas crawled toward his gun.
Ellen pointed Clara's pistol at him.
"Don't."
He looked up.
"Elena."
"Try me."
Something in Ellen's face convinced him.
He stopped.
Across the ballroom Dominic had Caruso pinned against the floor.
Caruso laughed through bloody teeth.
"Your father begged."
Dominic's fist froze.
"You're lying."
"Want to hear it?"
Dominic stared.
Caruso smiled.
"Thomas has the recording."
Dominic looked toward the injured former priest.
Thomas's face went white.
Enzo reached him first.
He searched Thomas's coat.
Nothing.
Then his shoes.
Nothing.
Clara suddenly remembered.
"The collar."
Everyone looked at her.
"He wasn't wearing his priest collar tonight."
Thomas's face changed.
Clara pointed toward the service hallway.
"He had it at Grand Central."
Enzo understood.
"The recording is hidden in the collar."
Thomas struggled to rise.
Ellen struck him across the face with the pistol.
"Stay down."
Enzo ran.
Victor saw the situation collapsing.
He grabbed the black ledger from beneath the table.
Clara shouted.
"Dominic!"
Victor ran toward the stage.
A hidden door opened behind the curtains.
Clara knew he was escaping.
Dominic released Caruso to Enzo and followed.
"Stay here!"
Clara looked at her mother.
Ellen said, "Don't."
Clara was already moving.
"Apparently I don't listen."
"That came from your father."
Clara stumbled after Dominic.
The hidden door led into the hotel's old service tunnels.
Victor ran with the ledger beneath one arm.
Dominic followed.
Clara followed Dominic at a much slower, much more painful pace.
Every breath hurt.
Blood warmed the bandage beneath her sweater.
She knew she'd opened something.
She kept going.
At the end of the tunnel Victor entered the hotel's original boiler room.
No longer used.
Metal stairs.
Pipes.
Concrete.
One exit to the alley.
Dominic reached him first.
Victor fired.
Dominic ducked behind a steel column.
"You can't shoot forever, Victor."
"I only need one."
Clara reached the doorway.
Victor saw her.
His expression changed.
"Persistent girl."
Dominic turned.
"Clara, get back!"
Victor aimed.
Dominic stepped between them.
The gun fired.
Dominic jerked.
Clara screamed.
He fell to one knee.
Victor smiled.
"Like father, like son."
Something inside Clara broke.
She lifted her pistol.
Victor fired again.
Empty.
Click.
His face changed.
Clara pointed her weapon.
"Drop the ledger."
Victor laughed.
"You won't kill me."
"No."
She steadied her hands.
"But I already shot a priest tonight, so my evening's gotten unpredictable."
Dominic, bleeding from his side, actually laughed.
Victor looked furious.
"Your father ruined everything."
"Good."
"He stole from men who trusted him."
"He stole evidence."
"He betrayed us."
Clara stared.
"My father chose his daughter over criminals."
Victor's eyes hardened.
"That's betrayal."
"No."
Clara's voice became steady.
"That's parenting."
Victor lunged toward the alley door.
A gunshot cracked.
He collapsed.
Clara hadn't fired.
Dominic hadn't either.
Victor stared at the blood spreading across his chest.
Behind him stood Raymond Bellandi.
Clara's uncle.
Gun smoking in his hand.
"Ray?"
Raymond looked at her.
"Hello, kid."
Victor coughed blood.
"You..."
Ray stepped closer.
"For Ellen."
He fired once more.
Victor Costa fell still.
Dominic immediately raised his gun at Raymond.
"Drop it."
Ray did.
Clara stared at him.
"You worked for Victor."
"For fourteen years."
"You kidnapped my mother."
"I got her out of Cleveland before Victor's men could kill her."
Ellen appeared in the doorway behind Clara.
"He's telling the truth."
Clara turned.
Her mother leaned against the wall.
"Mom?"
Ellen looked at her brother.
"Raymond was inside Costa's organization."
Clara's world tilted again.
"You told me never to speak to him."
"Because you were a child. And the more you believed he was dangerous, the safer both of you were."
Ray gave a tired smile.
"Your mother was very convincing."
Clara stared at Victor's body.
"Then who took Mom from the hospital?"
Raymond answered.
"I did."
"And the two dead Rossi guards?"
"Victor's men."
Dominic lowered his weapon slightly.
"You got Ellen out first."
Ray nodded.
"But Costa caught us three hours later."
"Why didn't you contact us?"
"Because we didn't know who inside your family was compromised."
Dominic understood.
Caruso.
Thomas.
Maybe others.
Ellen looked at Clara.
"Ray has been trying to get evidence against Victor since your father died."
Clara's knees weakened.
Dominic saw it.
"Clara."
She looked down.
Blood had soaked through her sweater.
Dominic's face changed.
"You're bleeding."
"I'm okay."
"No."
He crossed the room despite his own wound.
Clara's vision blurred.
"Dominic?"
He caught her as her legs collapsed.
"Clara!"
She looked at his face.
For some reason she thought of peaches.
Of a fifteen-year-old boy beneath a tree.
Of her father's letter.
Judge him by what he does when protecting you costs him something.
Dominic lifted her into his arms.
His own shirt was soaked with blood.
"Stay awake."
"You've said that before."
"Clara."
"You're bleeding too."
"I don't care."
"That's stupid."
"I know."
She smiled weakly.
"You kept the peach pit?"
His eyes widened.
"Enzo talks too much."
"You did?"
Dominic carried her toward the door.
"Yes."
"Why?"
He looked down at her.
"Because it was the first time anyone had ever thrown something at me without wanting me dead."
Clara laughed weakly.
Then darkness rushed toward her.
Before it took her, she felt Dominic's forehead press against hers.
"Don't you dare."
His voice broke.
"Not after all this."
May you like
And for the second time in four days, Dominic Rossi carried Clara Evans toward surgeons while her blood soaked through his clothes.
Only this time, the ring on her finger no longer felt quite so unwanted.
