Chapter 13 - The Vault
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The elevator doors chimed softly, sliding open to reveal a stark, white, brightly lit subterranean corridor. The air was freezing, climate-controlled to preserve the millions in cash, art, and secrets hidden behind the massive steel doors.
"I'm in," Isadora whispered into her hidden microphone.
"Eighty seconds," Gio’s voice crackled instantly in her ear, tense and focused. "Move, regina."
Isadora sprinted down the corridor, her stilettos clicking sharply against the polished concrete. She reached the primary vault door—a colossal structure of reinforced titanium.
Beside it sat the retinal scanner.
She pressed her eye against the cold glass of the lens. A red laser swept across her pupil.
Scanning... Access Granted.
The heavy mechanical locks engaged, groaning loudly as the massive steel door slowly swung outward.
"Sixty seconds," Gio warned.
Isadora squeezed through the gap before the door was fully open, entering a cavernous room lined with thousands of safety deposit boxes. She scanned the numbers frantically.
409... 410... 411.
There it was. Box 412.
She pulled the silver key from her clutch—the same key she had dropped into Gio’s wine days ago—and inserted it into the right-hand lock. She typed the alphanumeric code from her locket into the digital keypad on the left.
With a soft click, the box popped open.
Inside sat a thick, black leather-bound ledger.
Isadora grabbed it, shoving it into her clutch, which barely zipped shut over its bulk. The weight of the book felt immense. It was the proof of Vincenzo’s murder. It was her ticket to freedom.
"I have the book," Isadora breathed, turning to run back toward the vault door.
"Thirty seconds. Get out of there," Gio commanded.
She sprinted through the heavy steel door, back into the white corridor, and mashed the elevator button. The doors opened immediately. She stepped inside, the relief washing over her in a suffocating wave.
She had done it.
The elevator began to rise.
"Ten seconds," Gio said. "I’m waiting at the rendezvous point."
The elevator stopped. But it wasn't on the ground floor lobby.
It stopped on the mezzanine level.
The doors slid open.
Standing in the dimly lit hallway were five men in sharp gray suits, holding suppressed submachine guns.
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At the center of the kill squad stood Silvio Rossi.
"Hello, my dear," Silvio smiled, his silver eyes flashing with pure malice. "Did you really think a waitress could outsmart the underboss of the Rossi family?"
