Chapter 11 - THE PEOPLE BENEATH THE CITYThe passage was barely wide enough for one person.
Judge Cross led with a flashlight, followed by Tommy and Vincent carrying Leo between them. Celia remained beside her mother while Evelyn and Pike watched the rear.
Dr. Sterling carried the remaining half-dose of antitoxin.
The screams grew louder as they descended.
They were not screams of immediate pain. They were voices calling through walls, confused by gunfire and alarms after years of controlled silence.
The tunnel ended at a rusted ventilation grate.
Beyond it stretched an underground corridor lined with steel doors.
Each door contained a narrow observation window.
Faces appeared behind the glass.
Old faces.
Young faces.
Terrified faces.
Celia counted at least twenty cells before the corridor curved out of sight.
“My God,” Margaret whispered.
Judge Cross closed his eyes.
“I told you.”
Vincent stared at the prisoners.
“This existed under my city.”
“Your father built it,” Cross replied.
“I never knew.”
A woman behind one door struck the glass.
“Anthony?”
Vincent stepped closer.
She recoiled.
“No,” he said. “Anthony is dead.”
The woman began crying.
“Then open the door.”
Vincent tried the electronic panel.
Locked.
Dr. Sterling examined it.
“The controls are centralized.”
“Near the medical laboratory?” Celia asked.
“Yes.”
An alarm sounded.
Red emergency lights activated along the corridor.
Gabriel’s voice came through hidden speakers.
“Welcome, Vincent.”
Leo clung to his father.
Gabriel continued.
“You spent years pretending your family could become respectable. Donations, schools, legitimate companies. Yet beneath every building carrying your name, there has always been a foundation made of bones.”
Vincent looked toward the ceiling.
“Come say that to my face.”
“I prefer you alive long enough to understand.”
Steel barriers slammed down at both ends of the corridor.
They were trapped.
Gas hissed from the ventilation system.
Sterling covered his mouth.
“Everyone down!”
Tommy fired into a ceiling vent.
“Is it poison?”
“Sedative, probably.”
“Probably?”
“I helped design the original system twenty years ago.”
Vincent turned on him.
“You knew about this place.”
Sterling’s face tightened.
“I knew Anthony operated a secure medical facility. I was told the patients were protected witnesses.”
“You treated prisoners.”
“I treated people brought to me unconscious. I asked questions once. Anthony showed me photographs of my daughters walking to school.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“You should have told me after he died.”
“I did.”
“No.”
“I sent a complete report to your attorney, Gabriel Vale.”
Silence.
Gabriel had intercepted it.
Dr. Sterling removed a small emergency inhaler from his medical bag.
“This will keep Leo conscious, but there isn’t enough for everyone.”
“Give it to him,” Celia said.
The adults pulled clothing over their noses and mouths. Margaret began coughing.
Celia searched the wall for another mark from her father.
Nothing.
She looked through the nearest cell window. An elderly woman watched her.
“Do you know Daniel Jace?” Celia asked.
The woman’s eyes widened.
“You’re his daughter.”
“How do you know?”
“He talked about you every day.”
Celia pressed both hands against the glass.
“My father was here?”
“For three weeks.”
“My mother saw his body.”
“They staged his death. He survived the crash.”
Margaret staggered forward.
“No.”
The prisoner nodded.
“Anthony kept him alive to find the escape route. Daniel refused to tell him.”
Celia could barely speak.
“What happened to him?”
“He escaped.”
“Then why didn’t he come home?”
The woman looked down.
“He tried.”
Margaret began sobbing.
The gas thickened.
Judge Cross slumped against the wall.
Pike kicked the steel barrier.
“We need controls!”
The elderly prisoner pointed toward the floor.
“Daniel said the city breathes through water.”
Celia looked at the drainage channel running beneath the cells.
She dropped to her knees.
A narrow metal grate covered the channel. Beneath it, water flowed toward a larger pipe.
“The escape route,” she said.
Tommy ripped away the grate.
The opening was too small for an adult.
Leo tugged at Celia’s sleeve.
“I can fit.”
“No,” Vincent said immediately.
“Papa, I can.”
“You can barely move.”
“My legs work now.”
The boy demonstrated by lifting one knee. The antitoxin had restored partial movement, though his hands still trembled.
Celia examined the channel.
“It may lead to the control room.”
“Or it may drown him,” Vincent said.
Gabriel’s voice returned.
“Do you see the choice, Vincent? Your father made others crawl through darkness for his survival. Now your son can do the same for yours.”
Vincent fired at the speaker.
Leo touched his arm.
“You read me the story about the prince who went into the cave.”
“That was a story.”
“He was scared too.”
Vincent looked at Celia.
She understood what he was asking without words.
Could she guarantee Leo would survive?
No.
She would not lie.
“I’ll guide him from here,” she said. “We tie a line around his waist. If the water becomes too deep, we pull him back.”
Vincent knelt before his son.
“You do not have to prove anything.”
“I know.”
“You are not responsible for saving us.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Leo looked toward the prisoners.
“Because they’re scared.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
Then he removed his tie and secured it around Leo’s waist. Tommy added a length of electrical cable.
Celia lay beside the channel.
“Follow the water until you see another grate. Call out every few seconds.”
Leo crawled into the pipe.
The darkness swallowed him.
For several moments, only the sound of water remained.
“I’m okay,” Leo called faintly.
The gas made Celia dizzy.
She gripped the cable.
“Keep going.”
Leo’s voice became distant.
“I see a light.”
“Can you reach it?”
“I think so.”
Metal rattled.
Then the red lights turned off.
Fresh air blasted through the vents.
The steel barriers rose.
Cell doors clicked open one after another.
Prisoners stepped into the corridor, some for the first time in decades.
Vincent pulled the cable.
It came back loose.
There was no Leo attached to it.
“Leo!” Celia screamed.
No answer.
They ran toward the control room.
The grate at the other end of the drainage pipe was open.
Wet footprints crossed the floor.
Beside them lay the broken tie Vincent had secured around his son.
On the main security screen, Gabriel appeared inside the vault chamber.
He held Leo by the shoulder.
Simon stood beside him with Dr. Sterling’s medical equipment.
Gabriel smiled into the camera.
“Thank you for opening the cells.”
Behind Vincent, dozens of freed prisoners gathered in the corridor.
Gabriel continued.
“Now every witness to the Romano empire is standing in one place.”
A countdown appeared on the screen.
Five minutes.
Judge Cross looked toward the ventilation system.
“What happens when that reaches zero?”
Sterling stared at the control diagram.
“The lower levels flood.”
Celia looked around at the elderly and injured prisoners.
May you like
Gabriel had not needed to kill them individually.
He planned to drown the entire history of the Romano family beneath Chicago.
Related Stories
