Chapter 8 - THE BRASS KEY
The flashbang exploded with a blinding white light and a concussive shockwave that knocked me backward. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine, drowning out all sound.
Through the stinging smoke, chaos erupted.
Gabriel didn’t hesitate. He had closed his eyes a fraction of a second before the blast. He moved with a speed that defied his cane, raising his suppressed rifle and firing twice. Two of Callahan’s guards dropped instantly.
I scrambled across the concrete floor, coughing on the acrid smoke, my eyes locked on Leo. He was thrashing in the chair, coughing against the gag.
“Leo!” I choked out, finally reaching him. I pulled the filthy rag from his mouth.
“Claire!” he sobbed, his face smeared with dirt and tears.
I grabbed the heavy ropes binding his chest, pulling frantically, but the knots were thick and pulled impossibly tight. “Hold still, buddy, hold still.”
Bullets chipped the concrete pillars around us. I ducked, shielding Leo with my body.
Through the haze, I saw Callahan scrambling toward the back exit, clutching the signed land deed.
Gabriel was pinned behind a rusted generator, exchanging fire with the remaining four guards. He was outnumbered and outgunned.
I kept pulling at the ropes, my fingernails tearing, bleeding. It was no use.
Then, I remembered.
I reached into the deep pocket of my jacket. My fingers brushed past the pistol Gabriel had given me and closed around something small and cold.
The small brass key.
The key Gabriel had given me on our wedding night to lock my bedroom door. The first symbol of choice he had offered me.
I pulled it out. The edge of the key was sharp, jagged brass.
“Don’t move, Leo,” I whispered. I jammed the jagged teeth of the key into the thick hemp rope binding his wrists and began to saw frantically. The brass tore at the fibers, fraying them one by one.
A bullet ricocheted off the chair leg. I screamed, ducking lower, sawing harder.
Snap.
The rope gave way. Leo pulled his hands free, weeping in relief.
“Get the legs, get the legs!” I urged.
Suddenly, a massive shadow loomed over us.
One of Callahan’s guards broke away from the firefight and rushed us, raising his assault rifle directly at my head.
I didn’t have time to pull the pistol from my pocket. I froze, staring down the black barrel of the gun.
“Claire!” Gabriel roared.
Gabriel lunged from behind his cover. He didn’t have time to aim his rifle. He didn’t have time to seek new cover.
He threw himself directly between me and the guard.
The rifle fired.
Three deafening shots echoed through the mill.
Gabriel’s body jerked violently as the bullets tore into his chest and shoulder. He collapsed to his knees, blood instantly blossoming across his crisp white shirt.
“No!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat.
The guard smirked, adjusting his aim to finish Gabriel off.
My shock vanished, replaced by a white-hot, blinding rage.
I pulled the heavy black pistol from my pocket. I remembered Gabriel’s instructions. Point and squeeze. Do not hesitate.
I pointed the gun directly at the guard’s chest and pulled the trigger.
The recoil bruised my palm, but the bullet struck true. The guard staggered backward, his rifle dropping from his hands as he fell to the concrete.
Silence fell over the immediate area, broken only by the distant sounds of the remaining guards fleeing from Marco’s men outside.
I dropped the gun and threw myself onto the floor next to Gabriel.
He was gasping for air, clutching his shoulder.
“Gabriel… Gabriel, look at me,” I sobbed, pressing my hands frantically against his bleeding chest. The blood was warm and terrifyingly fast.
He looked up at me, his dark eyes cloudy with pain, but the ghost of a smile touched his lips.
“I told you…” he coughed, blood speckling his lips, “I don’t need… instructions on how to treat my wife.”
“Stop talking,” I cried, tearing my jacket off to press it against his wounds. “Leo, put pressure on his shoulder! Push hard!”
Leo, trembling but brave, pressed his small hands against Gabriel’s shoulder.
Suddenly, a slow, mocking clap echoed from the shadows near the exit.
Senator Callahan emerged from the gloom. He held a silver revolver in one hand and the signed land deed in the other.
“Touching,” Callahan sneered, stepping closer. “Truly. A mobster dying for a girl he bought. It’s almost Shakespearean. But you’re still going to die, Claire. And I’m still taking the land.”
He raised the silver revolver, aiming it directly at my head.
Gabriel groaned, trying to push himself up to shield me again, but he was too weak.
I didn’t flinch. I didn’t look away. I stared Callahan dead in the eye.
“You’re right, Senator,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “You can take the land.”
Callahan frowned, his finger pausing on the trigger.
“Because before we came here,” I continued, reaching into my pocket with my blood-stained hand, “Gabriel and I made a quick stop at a notary.”
I pulled out a folded piece of paper and tossed it onto the floor between us.
Callahan squinted at it.
“That’s the real deed,” I said, a cold smile forming on my lips. “The one I signed thirty minutes ago. Transferring full ownership of the Bennett property not to you, but to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as a site of an ongoing homicide investigation.”
Callahan’s face went completely, horrifically slack.
“The document you’re holding?” I pointed to the paper in his hand. “Is a forgery. Gabriel had it drawn up this morning. You just confessed to murder on tape to get a fake piece of paper.”
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From outside the mill, the wail of police sirens pierced the air, growing louder, multiplying by the second. Red and blue lights began to strobe through the shattered windows.
Callahan looked at the fake deed in his hand, then at the approaching lights, his empire crumbling into dust before his eyes.
