Chapter 5 - The Night of the Red Snow
By 5:30 AM, three non-descript black sedans were gliding quietly through the snow-choked streets of South Boston.
I sat in the back of the lead car, flanked by Roman on my left and Sophia on my right. I was wearing a thick black parka over my clothes, a dark knit cap pulling my hair back. Roman had insisted I come—not as a target, but because I knew the neighborhood better than any of his tactical men.
The target was a three-story, Victorian-style row house with boarded-up windows on East Broadway.
"Leo Moretti’s men are likely already inside," Sophia reported, looking down at a encrypted thermal monitor on her lap. "I'm picking up four heat signatures on the second floor. They're breaching the floorboards."
"They know we're onto them," Roman said, pulling a sleek black pistol from a hidden holster inside his jacket, checking the magazine with a practiced click. "We don't have time for a siege. Sophia, take team two through the fire escape. Clara, you stay in the vehicle with the driver."
"No," I said firmly.
Roman paused, looking at me with a mix of surprise and irritation. "This isn't a discussion, Clara."
"The basement entrance behind the coal chute," I said, pointing through the frost-covered window at the side of the house. "My grandfather used to own the bakery next door. These old Victorian houses all have interconnected coal tunnels from the 1920s. If Moretti’s men have four guys on the second floor, they'll have two watching the main doors. You go through the front, they'll burn the house down with the ledger inside."
Roman stared at me for three long seconds. The corner of his mouth twitched into the faintest hint of an approving smile.
"Sophia," Roman said. "Change of plan. We use the coal chute."
Two minutes later, we were moving silently through the pitch-black, dirt-smelling stone tunnel beneath the house. The air was freezing, dust floating in the narrow beams of our tactical flashlights.
Roman moved with terrifying grace for a man in his late forties. He was fast, silent, and entirely focused. I followed right behind him, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I was sure the men behind us could hear it.
We reached a heavy iron door at the end of the tunnel. Roman raised a hand, signaling for absolute silence.
From the room above us, muffled shouts echoed through the wooden joists.
"...find it! Moretti said it's hidden behind the fireplace brick!" a harsh voice barked.
Roman looked at Sophia, holding up three fingers, then two, then one.
BANG!
Sophia kicked the iron door off its rusted hinges, and Roman’s team breached the cellar like a tidal wave of lethal force.
The gunfire was brief, deafening, and absolute. The suppressed pops of Roman’s men cut through the dark before the gunmen upstairs could even understand where the attack was coming from.
I pressed my back against the damp brick wall of the cellar, covering my ears as footsteps thundered overhead.
Within ninety seconds, the house went completely silent.
"Clear!" Sophia’s voice echoed down the stairs.
Roman stepped back into the cellar, squeezing his weapon's safety into place. He walked over to a rusted iron furnace in the corner, reached deep inside the flue pipe, and pulled out a heavy, leather-bound book wrapped in oilskin.
He didn't open it immediately. He looked down at the book, then looked at me, standing in the shadows of the coal dust.
"You were right," Roman said softly, his voice cutting through the smell of gunpowder. "The tunnel was clear."
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He stepped toward me, reaching out his gloved hand. For a terrifying second, I thought he was going to touch my face, but he gently brushed a smudge of black coal dust off my cheek instead.
"You have a good head for survival, Clara Vance," Roman said gently. "It’s a pity you spent so many years carrying dinner trays."
