Chapter 6 - The Brother in the Cage
The extraction of Luca Moretti was not an entry in a legal ledger; it was an act of raw engineering. Artie and the union men used a portable oxy-acetylene torch to cut through the heavy hinges of the security door, the white sparks illuminating the concrete room until it looked like a furnace.
When the door finally fell outward with a deafening clang, Adrian stepped into the cell.
The room was four yards square, containing only a bare mattress, a plastic bucket, and a low wooden table covered in handwritten pages of numbers—the endless codes Victor had forced him to derive from memory. A heavy steel chain was padlocked around Luca’s left ankle, the iron ring having worn away the skin until the bone showed through in pale, calcified ridges.
"Twelve years, Adrian," Luca whispered, his voice cracking as his brother knelt to cut the chain with a pair of hydraulic bolt-cutters. "Twelve years in this hole. He told me if I ever stopped writing the codes, he’d send a man to put a bullet in Sofia."
"Sofia is safe, Luca," Adrian said, helping his brother to his feet. Luca was light—impossibly light—his body skeletal beneath his filthy flannel shirt. He couldn't stand on his left leg, the joint locked from years of confinement. "She’s with Marcus. She gave me the flash drive Elena made."
Luca looked at him, his pale eyes filling with sudden, terrifying panic. "Elena... Elena is down here, Adrian."
Adrian froze, the bolt-cutters slipping from his hand. "What?"
"Two nights ago," Luca stammered, pointing to the secondary storage room behind his cell. "They brought her down. She was still breathing, but her head... Victor hit her with a pipe. He told the boys to put her behind the old brick wall where the coal bins used to be. They sealed it up with quick-dry cement."
Adrian didn't say a word. He stood up, walked out of the cell, and marched into the secondary room.
The beam of his flashlight hit the far wall. A fresh patch of gray concrete stood out against the dark, soot-stained brickwork of the old terminal. The mortar was still damp to the touch, a faint, chemical smell of lime and aggregate hanging in the air.
"Artie," Adrian said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. "Get the sledgehammers."
The union men fell upon the wall with a rhythmic, violent force. The concrete cracked, the fresh blocks splitting open under the heavy iron heads until the gray wall collapsed inward.
Inside the narrow cavity, Elena Cruz lay on her side, her hair matted with dried blood, her hands still bound with industrial zip-ties. Her face was gray, her lips white, but when Adrian reached in to check her carotid artery, a faint, fluttering pulse beat against his fingertips.
"She’s alive," Adrian said, lifting her out of the brick dust. "She’s dying, but she’s alive. Artie, take her and Luca to the east gate. Use the armored car. Marcus is waiting."
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"And you, Adrian?" Artie asked, his shotgun held ready as footsteps began to echo from the steel catwalks above the loading bay. Victor’s guards had finally realized the perimeter had been breached.
"I’m staying," Adrian said, checking his submachine gun’s chamber. "My cousin and I have an appointment to discuss the management of this family."
