Savage Rites – Episode 37&38

We moved deeper into the tunnel system.

The single bulb of the Safe Room faded behind us, plunging us into a darkness broken only by the flashlights mounted on Dante’s and Nico’s guns.

Nico leaned heavily on me, his breath hitching every few steps. The Kevlar vest was gone, but the damage to his ribs was a ticking clock. Every movement cost him.

“Faster,” Nico gritted out, though he was the one slowing us down.

“We’re moving as fast as we can,” Sloane whispered from behind us. She was practically carrying Matteo now. He was pale, his eyes unfocused, stumbling over the uneven brick floor.

“Hold,” Dante hissed from the front.
He killed his light instantly. Nico followed suit. We were plunged into pitch blackness.

“What is it?” Nico whispered, his hand tightening painfully on my shoulder.
“Movement,” Dante breathed. “Up ahead. Near the junction.”

My heart hammered against the gold mesh of my dress. Julian? Had he flanked us? Was he waiting in the dark with that damn cane and his army of Russians?

We stood frozen, listening.

The sound came again. It was the frantic, stumbling click of high heels on stone. And sobbing.

“Don’t shoot,” Nico commanded softly. He flicked his light back on.

The beam cut through the gloom and landed on a figure huddled in a rusted alcove about twenty feet ahead.

It was a woman. She was curled into a ball, shaking violently, clutching a piece of jagged pipe like a weapon. Her dress a magnificent, backless emerald gown was torn at the hem and covered in dust. Her dark hair was a rat’s nest.

She looked up, blinded by the light, and swung the pipe wildly.

“Stay back!” she shrieked. “I’ll kill you! I swear to God, I’ll kill you!”

“Bianca?” I gasped.

The woman froze. She lowered the pipe, squinting into the beam.

“Elena?” she choked out. Then her eyes adjusted, and she saw the rest of us. “Nico?”
Nico lowered the gun, letting out a groan of frustration that turned into a cough.

“For f+k’s sake,” Nico rasped. “Bianca. How the hell did you get here?”

Bianca scrambled to her feet. She looked like a wreck. Her mascara was running in streaks down her face, and she was missing a shoe. She limped toward us.

“How did I get here?” she screamed, her voice echoing dangerously down the tunnel. “I escaped! You locked me in a room, you bastards! Did you think a window lock could hold a Ricci?”

She pointed a trembling finger at Matteo, who was swaying on his feet.

“And you!” she yelled at him. “You threw me in there like a sack of potatoes!”

“You’re welcome,” Matteo mumbled, his head lolling. “Should’ve stayed there. Safer.”

“Safer?” Bianca scoffed hysterically. “I heard the gunfire! I knew the Gala was tonight! I wasn’t going to sit in a tower while she…” she gestured violently at me “paraded around in gold.”

She looked at my dress. Even in the dark, with death chasing us, her jealousy was palpable.
“You look ridiculous,” she spat.

“Bianca, shut up,” Nico snapped. “We have Russian mercenaries behind us and a flooded river ahead of us. How did you get into the tunnels?”

“I came through the wine cellar entrance at the Gala,” Bianca said, crossing her arms defensively. “I snuck in. I was going to… I don’t know, crash the party. Then the shooting started. I saw Julian on the stage. I saw what he was doing.”

She shuddered, a real tremor of fear breaking through her bravado.

“He looked at me, Nico. He looked right at me and smiled. He let his men chase me down here. I’ve been hiding in this hole for twenty minutes waiting for them to pass.”

“They didn’t pass,” Dante said grimly, looking back the way we came. “They’re still behind us. And they’re catching up.”

“We have to move,” Nico said. “Bianca, fall in. Do not lag behind.”

“I’m not going with you!” Bianca argued, backing away. “You’re the targets! If I stay here, maybe they’ll ignore me.”

“You’re a Ricci,” Sloane spoke up, her voice dry. “To the Volkovs, you’re just leverage with nice tits. If they find you, they won’t ignore you. They’ll use you to make your father open the ports.”

Bianca looked at Sloane, then at the dark tunnel behind us. She heard a distant sound, a heavy metallic clang of a door being forced open.

Julian was through the Safe Room.

“Fine!” Bianca cried, hobbling over to us. She shoved past me, deliberately knocking her shoulder into mine. “But if I ruin my other shoe, I’m suing you, Nico.”

“Get moving,” Nico ordered.
We started running again,

The tunnel began to slope downward. The air got colder, wetter. We were reaching the river level.

“Wait,” Bianca panted, grabbing Nico’s arm. “Matteo… is he dying?”

She was looking at the enforcer. Sloane was practically dragging him now. His blood had soaked through the bandages, dripping onto the stones.

“He’s hit bad,” Nico said shortly.

Bianca looked at Matteo. The man who had manhandled her, locked her up, and mocked her for years.

She rushed to his other side. She didn’t look happy about it, but she jammed her shoulder under his armpit, taking some of the weight off Sloane.

“You’re heavy, you oaf,” Bianca muttered, though her hands were gripping his jacket tightly.

“Nice perfume, B,” Matteo slurred, managing a weak smirk. “Eau de desperation?”

“Shut up or I drop you.”

We reached the end of the brick tunnel. It opened up into a larger, natural cavern. The sound of rushing water filled the air.

Ahead of us was a wooden dock, rotting and slick with moss. And tied to it was a rigid-hull inflatable boat—black, military-grade, with twin outboard motors.

“The extraction point,” Nico said, relief flooding his voice.

“It’s small,” Bianca noted, eyeing the boat. “There are six of us. That thing fits four comfortably.”

“Then we get uncomfortable,” Nico said.
Dante jumped into the boat first, checking the fuel and the engines.

“Clear,” Dante yelled over the roar of the water. “Keys are in the ignition.”

“Load up!” Nico shouted.

Sloane and Bianca hauled Matteo into the boat. He collapsed onto the floorboards.

Sloane jumped in after him. Bianca hesitated, looking at her ruined shoe, then clambered in, sitting on the bench seat and smoothing her torn emerald dress.

I went to step in.

CRACK.

A bullet sparked off the stone wall inches from my face.

Rock shards sprayed my cheek. I screamed and ducked.

“Contact rear!” Dante roared, raising his submachine gun.

I spun around.

At the entrance of the cavern, silhouettes were emerging from the tunnel. Flashlights cut through the dark.

And standing in the center, illuminated by the tactical lights of his men, was Julian.

He wasn’t running. He wasn’t sweating. He raised his cane and pointed it at the boat.
“Leaving so soon?” his voice echoed. “The party was just getting started.”

“Go!” Nico shouted, shoving me into the boat so hard I fell onto Bianca.

“Get off me!” Bianca shrieked, pushing me away.

Nico didn’t get in.

He stood on the dock. He turned to face the oncoming Russians. He raised the combat shotgun he had carried from the Safe Room.
“Nico!” I screamed, scrambling to my knees. “Get in the boat!”

“Start the engines!” Nico roared at Dante.
“Nico, no!” I tried to climb back out, but Sloane grabbed the back of my gold dress and held me fast.

“He’s buying us time,” Sloane yelled in my ear.
“I won’t leave him!”

Nico racked the shotgun. He looked back at me over his shoulder. His face was pale, bloodied, and beautiful in the harsh light of the flashlights.

“Go, Elena,” he commanded. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Liar!” I screamed.
Nico turned back to the enemy. He fired.
BOOM.

The lead Russian dropped. The others scattered for cover.

Julian didn’t move. He stood amidst the gunfire, watching Nico with a look of pure, calculated hatred.

“Dante, hit it!” Nico yelled.
The engines roared to life. The water churned white at the stern.

Dante gunned the throttle. The boat surged away from the dock, throwing me back against the seat.

I watched in horror as the gap between us and the dock widened.

Nico was alone. He stood his ground, firing the shotgun, pump-action rhythm against the automatic fire of the Russians.

Then, I saw Julian signal.

Three men rushed Nico at once.

Nico swung the shotgun like a club, cracking one across the jaw, but the others tackled him. They bore him down to the wet wood of the dock.

“Nico!” I screamed, my voice tearing my throat.

I saw them dragging him up. I saw Julian walk over to him.

Julian leaned down and said something to Nico. Then, Julian looked out across the water, at the retreating boat. At me.

He waved. A slow, mocking wave.
Then he struck Nico across the face with his cane. Nico went limp.

The boat rounded a bend in the cavern, and the dock disappeared into darkness.

“Turn back!” I screamed at Dante, clawing at his arm. “Turn back! They have him!”

“We can’t!” Dante shouted, his face grim as he navigated the treacherous current. “We have no ammo, three wounded, and no backup. If we go back, we all die.”

I collapsed onto the floor of the boat, sobbing into the cold, wet metal of my gold dress.

Bianca sat next to me. She wasn’t screaming anymore. She was staring back at the darkness where Nico had fallen, her face white with shock.

For the first time, she didn’t insult me. She reached out and gripped my hand. Her nails dug into my skin, painful and sharp.

The river was a black ribbon of ice and death.
Dante navigated the RIB through the churning currents, the engine’s roar drowning out the sound of my own sobbing.

I sat on the floor of the boat, my knees pulled to my chest, my arms wrapped around my shivering body. The gold dress, once a symbol of power, now felt like a cage of wet metal. It weighed me down, dragging me toward the bottom of the boat, toward the bottom of the despair I felt opening up inside me.

He’s gone.

The image played on a loop behind my eyelids: Nico standing on the dock. The muzzle flash of the shotgun. Julian striking him down. The darkness swallowing him whole.

“We need to dump the boat,” Dante yelled over the wind, his voice cracking. It was the first time I had ever heard the Silent Heir sound afraid. “The Coast Guard will be looking for us. Julian will have tipped them off.”

“Where do we go?” Sloane shouted back. She was hunched over Matteo, her hand pressed firmly against his shoulder. Matteo’s eyes were closed, his breathing shallow and rattling. “He needs a surgeon, Dante. Not a safe house. A surgeon.”

“We can’t go to the hospitals!” Dante argued, spinning the wheel to steer us toward a derelict industrial wharf on the Jersey side. “They’ll be watching.”

“I know a place,” Sloane said. “My father keeps a vet on retainer for the racehorses. It’s a farm in Colts Neck. Off the books. Fully equipped.”
Dante hesitated, looking back at the skyline of Manhattan receding in the distance.

“Do you trust the vet?” Dante asked.

“I trust my father’s money,” Sloane said. “And right now, it’s the only option we have.”

Dante nodded. He cut the engines, letting the boat drift silently toward the rotting pilings of an abandoned sugar refinery.

We bumped against the wood with a hollow thud.

“Unload,” Dante commanded.

It took all of us to get Matteo out. He was dead weight now. Dante and Sloane hauled him up the rusty ladder onto the pier.

Bianca climbed up next. She struggled in her one shoe and torn dress, slipping on the wet rungs. I was right behind her, pushing her up when she faltered.

She didn’t thank me. She scrambled onto the concrete deck and collapsed, gasping for air.
I pulled myself up last. My arms shook so badly I almost fell back into the black water.
We stood on the desolate pier.

“What now?” Bianca asked, her voice trembling. She looked around the empty, trash-strewn lot. “Where is the car? Where is Nico?”

She looked at me, her eyes wild.
“This is your fault,” she whispered.
I stiffened. “Bianca, don’t.”

“It is your fault!” she screamed, lunging at me. She shoved my chest, her hands slipping on the wet gold mesh. “He stayed behind because of you! He was protecting you! If you had never come to Blackwood, none of this would have happened!”

She shoved me again. I stumbled back, my boots catching on a piece of rebar.

“He’s going to die because of a scholarship charity case!” Bianca shrieked, tears streaming down her face. “He’s gone! The King is gone!”

Something inside me snapped.

Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Or maybe it was the fact that she was right—Nico had sacrificed himself for me.
I didn’t stumble this time. I caught her wrist mid-shove.

I squeezed it hard
“Stop it,” I said. My voice was low, guttural. It sounded like Nico’s.

Bianca gasped, trying to pull away, but I held on. I stepped into her space, forcing her to look at me.

“He isn’t gone,” I hissed. “He’s captured. There is a difference.”
“Julian will kill him!”

“No,” I said. “Julian wants to play a game. He wants to prove he’s better than Nico. He won’t kill him quickly. He’ll want an audience.”
I released her wrist, throwing her hand back at her.

“Nico bought us time,” I said, addressing the group. “He stayed on that dock so we could get away. If we stand here arguing, we waste that time. And then his sacrifice means nothing.”

I looked at Dante. “Get the car. We go to Sloane’s vet. We patch Matteo up.”
Dante looked at me. He looked at the blood on my face.

He nodded. “I’ll hotwire a car from the lot up the road.”

“I’m coming with you,” Sloane said. “I know the way.”

They took off running into the dark.
I was left alone with Bianca and the unconscious Matteo.

Bianca hugged herself, shivering violently in her thin silk dress. She looked at Matteo, then at the river, then at me.

“What are we going to do, Elena?” she whispered. The rage was gone, replaced by a terrified vulnerability. “Without Nico… we are nothing.”

I reached up and touched the ruby necklace at my throat. It was cold against my skin.
The Queen is the most powerful piece.
“We aren’t nothing,” I said.

I walked over to the edge of the pier and looked out at the water. Somewhere out there, in the dark, Julian had Nico. He thought he had won. He thought he had taken the King and left the board empty.

But he had forgotten the rules of the game.
“We are the De Lucas,” I said, turning back to Bianca. “And we are going to burn his world down.”

Headlights swept across the pier. An old, beat-up station wagon screeched to a halt in front of us. Dante was behind the wheel.
“Get in!” Sloane yelled from the passenger window.

I grabbed Matteo’s legs. Bianca grabbed his good arm. Together, we hauled him into the back of the wagon.

I climbed in beside him. Bianca got in the other side.

As the car sped away, leaving the river behind, I didn’t look back.

Nico had told me to break Julian. He had told me to look him in the eye and tell him I chose the monster.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the cold glass.

Hold on, Nico, I thought. I’m coming for you. The game wasn’t over.

TBC