Page 191 of Phantom Mine

On the fourth try there’s a loud cracking noise and then it splinters and flies open.

At the sink, I run the shirt under the jet of water until it’s completely soaked through. When I emerge from the bathroom, it’s tied around the bottom half of my face and I can breathe marginally better.

A rushing noise sounds behind me. I turn just as jets of water shoot through the window and hit the blaze.

I realize with a sinking feeling that it won’t help.

The water comes in with a frightening amount of pressure and yet gets immediately swallowed by the flames. They’re no match for the spreading inferno and it’s clear the only way this fire is stopping is once it’s demolished the entire structure.

Firenzewas opened by theFamigliaalmost forty years ago and renovated multiple times since to stay relevant with the changing times. Before that, the building had been used for a number of different Mafia businesses going back almost two hundred years.

It’s an institution and an iconic landmark for theFamiglia, and yet I can’t get myself to give a shit as I’m faced with its inevitable destruction.

“Leni!” I yell, charging down the hallway towards the VIP room. That’s where she was in the photo that was sent to me.

I’m going to kill Guido for hurting her.

I know he’s behind this even though he was too much of a bitch to openly own up to it. But that’s always been him—the lesser, jealous cousin, bitter that he was overlooked his entire life and with just few enough brain cells to take me on by coming after my fuckingwife.

When I’m ten feet from the VIP room, the floor collapses underneath my left foot. It comes down on the slats and the wood gives way, the fire having burned through it from underneath. I fall and my momentum almost sends my entire body tumbling through, but I catch myself just in time. It takes all of my upper body strength to hold me up as both my legs dangle beneath me.

The floorboards are boiling beneath my forearms and the jagged, blazing edges dig into my chest. The familiar smell of burning flesh reaches my nose, triggering traumatic flashbacks.

I squeeze my eyes shut and shove them aside with a furious, animalistic snarl. One thought powers superhuman strength into my palms as I start to drag myself painfully slowly back up.

I can’t die without having gotten Valentina to safety.

A determined scream of rage tears from my throat as I’m able to get my knee over the edge. I use it to hoist myself up and roll onto my back on the floor. I don’t feel the heat at my back, the scarred flesh having lost almost all nerve function.

No matter how fast I try to move, it feels like I’m stuck in molasses.

Like I’m not going quickly enough.

Like I’m losing her with every passing second.

I’m back on my feet and running, closing the final bit of distance to the VIP room entrance, and roaring at the top of my lungs, “LENI!”

I push at the doors, but they don’t budge. I try shaking the handles and slamming my shoulder directly into the door, to no avail. They must be barricaded from the other side.

And then I hear it.

“Mhmm.”

It’s faint, but I’d know her anywhere.

The mumble filters softly through the din around me and sweeps fresh life into my chest. It’s a muffled, incoherent sound and yet I recognize it instantly as Valentina calling my name behind her gag.

“Len—? Leni!Leni!” I cry, pounding my fists against the door. Doubling and tripling my efforts. I throw my entire weight into the door in attempts of devolving desperation, but it holds. “I’m almost there,cara.”

I choke on a relieved sob, inhaling my shirt into my mouth with every breath. She’s alive.

She’s alive and she’s just on the other side of that door.

Like a bird fighting for freedom from its cage, my heart crashes into my ribcage with every beat.

“I’ll be right back,” I call reassuringly.

At the opposite end of the hallway, I find the glass emergency case. I jab through it with my elbow and turn away as shards fly off and rain down. I rip the axe off its stand and run back for Valentina.

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