Michael took three paces forward, stepping over scattered drywall and broken glass.
The smoke hung thick between them, smelling of burned carpet and sulfur.
“Get out from behind him, Claire,” Michael ordered. “Move toward the kitchen.”
Claire stayed crouched behind Roman’s shoulder. Her hands rested against the cold marble of the bar. “You died in a warehouse fire in Queens. I went to your funeral. Mom died thinking you were gone.”
“I had to disappear so I could build the leverage to finish this,” Michael said. His tone was brisk and practical, without any trace of grief. “Bianca has been feeding me Roman’s calendar for six months. I personally arranged your transfer to this private dining room three weeks ago.”
Roman kept his pistol leveled directly at Michael’s chest. Blood ran into his left eye, but his arm did not waver. “You used your own child as a human shield.”
“I used what worked,” Michael replied. “You spent twelve years paying her college tuition through dummy accounts. You kept her mother’s mortgage paid. You think I didn’t notice where the cash came from? You felt guilty because you thought you ordered my execution. I knew if she was standing beside you when the hammer fell, you would hesitate.”
Claire looked at Roman’s profile. “Is that true? You paid for my school?”
“Your father didn’t betray me twelve years ago,” Roman said without looking away from Michael. “He stole nine million dollars from our supply line, framed his own crew, and burned that warehouse with four of his men inside to fake his death. I paid your family because I thought you were innocent victims of his greed.”
“He’s lying to you, Claire,” Michael said sharply. “He’s a cartel boss. He destroys everything he touches. Now walk over here to me so I can put a bullet in his skull.”
The emergency alarms finally tripped, filling the high-rise with a shrill, pulsing tone. Water began to hiss from the overhead sprinklers, dampening the plaster dust in the air.
Michael shifted his weight, his gun steady on Roman’s torso. “Claire. Don’t make me drag you.”
Claire looked from her father’s cold, unfamiliar face to the heavy brass draft tower mounted on the counter above her. The copper beer line had already been severed by shrapnel, leaking pressurized gas into the damp air.
She remembered the wine cellar key sitting in her apron pocket, and the service exit fifty feet down the back passage.
“You didn’t come back for me,” Claire said.
“I came back to win,” Michael answered. “Now move.”
Claire reached up, gripped the base of the damaged draft tower, and wrenched it downward with all her weight.
The remaining copper line ruptured completely, releasing a roaring jet of trapped carbon dioxide directly into Michael’s face.
Michael recoiled, cursing as the blinding blast of freezing vapor hit his eyes. His first shot went wide, shattering a display mirror behind Roman.
Roman lunged over the counter.
He caught Michael’s wrist, forcing the revolver upward. The two men collided against the cracked walnut paneling of the wall.
Claire scrambled to her feet. “Roman, the kitchen exit is blocked—take the service hall!”
Michael drove an elbow into Roman’s wounded temple, breaking the grip on his arm. He brought the gun down again, aiming directly at Roman’s chest.
Claire seized a heavy crystal decanter from the floor and hurled it.
It struck Michael’s shoulder, spoiling his aim just as he squeezed the trigger. The bullet buried itself into the oak floorboards.
Roman countered with a sharp blow to Michael’s jaw, followed by a sweep of his leg that drove the older man hard against the debris. The revolver clattered away, sliding beneath a fallen banquet table.
Roman pinned Michael to the floor, pressing the muzzle of his own weapon against Michael’s forehead.
Michael gasped for air, his teeth stained with blood, but he did not plead. “Go ahead. Show her what you are.”
Roman tightened his grip on the frame. His knuckles were white.
Claire took a step forward. “Roman. Stop.”
Roman did not lower the gun. “He murdered his own crew, Claire. He set you up to die in this room just to get a clean angle on me.”
“I know what he did,” Claire said. Her voice was steady now. “And if you kill him right here, you prove he was right about you. Don’t do it for him. Don’t even do it for me. Just don’t do it.”
Roman stared down at the man who had been his brother-in-arms a decade before.
The sirens in the street thirty floors below had multiplied, their wails cutting through the broken windows.
Roman stepped back and lowered his weapon. “You aren’t worth the brass.”
He reached down, took Claire firmly by the wrist, and pulled her toward the swinging doors of the service corridor. “Move. The police will seal the lobby in two minutes.”
Claire looked back once.
Michael was struggling to his knees among the wreckage, coughing on the wet ash. His fingers clawed at the dust, searching blindly for the lost gun. He didn’t look at her as she walked away.
Roman pushed open the reinforced door leading to the temperature-controlled wine room. The air inside was chilled and quiet, smelling of cork and damp stone.
Claire pulled the brass key from her uniform pocket and jammed it into the heavy deadbolt of the emergency exit. The lock clicked, and the metal door swung outward into a concrete stairwell lit by yellow safety bulbs.
“Where is Bianca?” Claire asked as they started down the stairs.
“Gone into the wind,” Roman said, wiping the blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Her family has private airstrips in New Jersey. She won’t stay in the state past midnight.”
“And my father?”
“The building security feeds run directly to the precinct,” Roman replied. “His face is on every camera in the corridor. He survived twelve years by staying dead. Tonight he made sure everyone knows he’s alive, and every family in New York will be hunting him before sunrise.”
They descended six flights before Roman stopped at an unmarked landing leading to an underground delivery bay. A black sedan with tinted glass was idling near the loading dock, its exhaust curling in the cool night air.
A driver jumped out, holding the rear door open.
Roman paused on the threshold and looked at Claire.
“You don’t have to get in this car,” he said. “There’s a pedestrian exit fifty yards to the left. You can walk out onto Forty-Fourth Street, talk to the detectives, and tell them you were just an employee clearing tables.”
Claire looked down at her soot-stained apron and the torn hem of her uniform.
“If I walk out there, your syndicate will come looking for answers about tonight,” she said.
“No,” Roman said. “They won’t touch you. I give you my word.”
“Your word didn’t stop my father from coming back from the dead.”
“No,” Roman agreed quietly. “It didn’t.”
Sirens wailed in the alley outside, drawing closer. The glare of flashing red lights swept across the concrete walls of the delivery ramp.
Claire untied her apron, let it fall onto the oily pavement, and walked past Roman toward the open car door.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Roman stepped in behind her and pulled the door shut.
“To find Bianca,” he said.
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