Chapter 8 - The Price of a Line Cook
"Don't do it, Leo," Aubrey whispered, her hand grabbing his forearm. "It’s a trap. If you open that door, they’ll kill all of us."
Leo didn't move. He stood before the security monitor, his face completely expressionless, his eyes tracking the positions of the three men outside. Victor had two shooters with him—younger men, nervous, their eyes constantly scanning the tree line. They were out of their depth in the woods; they were city boys, used to concrete alleys and crowded social clubs.
"Marcus is an old man, Aubrey," Leo said softly. "He spent thirty years flipping burgers for truckers. He doesn't know anything about the families. He shouldn't be in the ledger."
"And you're a mafia boss," she said, her voice cracking with an desperate, fierce intensity. "Aren't you supposed to be cold? Aren't you supposed to protect yourself first?"
Leo turned his head to look at her. "There's a difference between being cold and being a coward, Clara. If I let Carmine's people think they can use an old line cook to make Leo Vance hide in a hole, then I’ve already lost the city."
He reached over to a small wooden box on the desk, pulling out a second weapon—a heavy, chrome-plated .45 caliber automatic. He slid it across the mahogany toward her.
"Do you remember how to hold it?" he asked.
Aubrey looked at the heavy gun. Her hands were shaking again, but the exhaustion that had defined her life for five years was entirely gone, replaced by a cold, burning clarity. "Two hands. Keep the thumb away from the slide."
"Good girl," Leo said. "Stay in the pantry behind the kitchen. If the garage door opens and it's not me coming through, you put three rounds into whatever steps through the frame. Don't look at their faces. Just look at their vests."
He turned back to the security panel and hit the master override switch.
With a heavy, mechanical groan, the massive steel garage door began to rise, exposing the concrete bunker to the dark, rain-swept pines outside.
Leo didn't wait for Victor to enter. He didn't offer a parley or a negotiation. The moment the steel door rose eighteen inches from the ground, Leo dropped to his stomach on the concrete floor and fired four rapid shots beneath the frame, targeting the exposed legs of the two shooters flanking Victor.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
The younger men yelled as the low-caliber rounds shattered their ankles and shins. They collapsed into the gravel, their weapons discharging uselessly into the mud.
Victor, showing the brutal instinct of an old soldier, didn't try to fire back at the garage. Instead, he yanked Marcus’s tied body in front of him like a human shield, backing away toward the black sedan while trying to raise his silver revolver with his free hand.
"Leo!" Aubrey screamed from the kitchen doorway.
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She hadn't stayed in the pantry. She stood at the top of the concrete steps leading down to the garage, the heavy chrome .45 raised with both hands, her pale face illuminated by the bright fluorescent tubes of the bunker. She wasn't looking at Victor's face; she was looking at the small, exposed patch of his shoulder where Marcus’s head didn't cover him.
She pulled the trigger.
