Chapter 6: Fire and Iron
The smoke thickened instantly, rolling across the low ceiling in choking billows that stung my eyes and clawed at my throat. I coughed violently, grabbing a wool shipping blanket off a nearby stack and pressing it over my nose and mouth. The fire was spreading fast along the old wooden flooring, feeding on decades of accumulated dust and dry timber. I slammed my shoulder against the heavy fire door again, but the iron bar outside held firm against my weight. Panic spiked through my chest, cold and sharp. I was trapped in a concrete tomb with the ledgers clutched tightly under one arm.
Through the rising roar of the flames, the distinct throaty rumble of a heavy-block V8 engine idled outside the loading bay. A pair of high-beam headlights sliced through the grimy wire-reinforced windows, flashing twice. Then came the unmistakable metallic shriek of a hydraulic winch tearing the exterior security bar right out of the masonry frame.
The heavy iron door buckled inward with a thunderous crash, tearing off its top hinge. A tall silhouette stepped through the dense curtain of smoke, framed by the blinding headlights of Falcone’s armored town car idling in the alley. It wasn’t the bodyguard. It was Falcone himself, dressed in shirtsleeves, his white cuffs rolled up to his forearms, a heavy iron crowbar gripped in his right hand.
"Move!" Falcone barked, his voice cutting through the crackle of the fire.
He didn't hesitate. He grabbed the front of my jacket and hauled me backward just as a stack of burning pallets collapsed where I had been standing a second before. Coughing in the acrid air, I stumbled out past him into the freezing rain of the loading dock, sucking in deep lungfuls of clean, wet air. Falcone threw the heavy ledger books into the open trunk of his car, slammed the lid shut with a deafening bang, and shoved me into the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel himself.
Tires squealed against the slick asphalt as he whipped the car around, tearing out of the alley just as the warehouse’s central roof timber collapsed inward in a shower of sparks. The heat kissed the rear bumper as we shot out onto the highway access road, accelerating hard into the night. Neither of us spoke for five miles. The dashboard glow illuminated the sharp lines of Falcone’s jaw and the dark soot smudged across his cheek.
"You had a tail," Falcone said quietly, his eyes fixed on the empty wet highway ahead. "Someone in my own organization tipped off the cleanup crew the moment you entered that building."
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I wiped a smudge of black ash from my forehead, my heart still hammering against my ribs. "They didn't want those ledgers seeing the light of day. The signature on the asset transfer wasn't Bellandi's. It belonged to your chief financial officer."
Falcone’s grip on the steering wheel tightened until his knuckles turned bone white. He didn't blink. "Then we are going home to dig deeper."
