Chapter 34 - A Bitter Confection
The sound of ricocheting bullets was deafening. Luca rolled onto his back, returning fire with controlled, deadly three-round bursts. A scream cut through the smoke as one of Lorenzo’s operatives crumpled, a bullet finding the gap beneath his ballistic collar.
"Lily! Keep your head down!" Luca yelled over the din of battle, slapping a fresh magazine into his rifle.
"The detonator!" Lily shouted back, pointing through the swirling gas.
Across the room, the bomb Aurelia had set was still attached to the central pillar. Aurelia’s severed thumb had failed to activate the manual trigger, but the secondary timer—which had paused at forty-three seconds—was suddenly flickering back to life, its digital display glitching due to the electrical interference from the Freon discharge: *00:20... 00:19...*
"The fail-safe engaged!" Luca cursed.
Lorenzo’s voice bellowed through the freezing fog. "Fall back to the secondary lift! Take the girl!"
Two operatives charged through the smoke, their thermal goggles glowing like the eyes of predatory insects. One lunged toward Lily, reaching out with an armored gauntlet to drag her away.
Lily didn't flinch. Drawing on the instinct that had kept her alive in the ruthless streets of Palermo, she reached into the pocket of her maid's apron. Her hand closed around the small, heavy glass vial of industrial confectioner's acid—the concentrated crystallization agent she had retrieved from the kitchen pantry hours earlier to inspect the poisoned sugar.
She uncapped it with her thumb and threw the liquid directly into the operative’s visor.
The chemical reaction was instant. The highly caustic acid hissed against the polycarbonate glass, eating through the optical sensors and blinding the operative with caustic heat. The man screamed, staggering backward while clawing wildly at his melting helmet.
Luca seized the opening. He rose from behind the crate and fired twice into the operative's exposed chest, dropping him instantly.
"Move! To the main lift!" Luca grabbed Lily’s uninjured hand, pulling her toward the reinforced elevator on the eastern wall.
Behind them, Lorenzo stood at the edge of the freezing western tunnel, his cane raised, his face twisted in cold fury. He did not chase them into the open. Instead, he locked eyes with Lily through the thinning smoke.
"You cannot run from your blood, child!" Lorenzo’s voice echoed like a curse through the chamber. "The Syndicate will collect what Elena stole!"
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Luca slammed his fist onto the lift’s manual override. The steel blast doors slid shut with a resounding thud just as the timer on the central pillar hit zero.
***
