Chapter 19 - One Dose Left
Sadi's first reaction was anger.
Fear arrived second.
She looked at the tiny puncture in her arm.
It seemed impossible that something so small could have destroyed Gabriel's shoulder.
Matteo held the empty injector between two fingers.
"How does it feel?"
Sadi grabbed the nearest server rail and kept herself upright.
"Like I want to break your hand."
Matteo smiled.
"Still Tomas's daughter."
Gabriel struck the glass door again.
The frame bent but did not open.
Dorsey aimed at him.
"Hit it one more time."
Gabriel stopped.
Not because he was afraid of Dorsey.
Because Sadi was between the gun and the server racks.
The computer announced.
FINAL PURGE AUTHORIZATION PENDING.
Matteo looked at Sadi.
"The system recognizes Moreno blood."
She stared at him.
"You need me to authorize it."
"I need one drop and a pulse."
"Then you should have used something less likely to stop both."
Matteo's smile disappeared.
Sadi saw uncertainty.
He did not know the exact timing of the dose.
That meant she had time.
Maybe minutes.
Maybe less.
She flexed her fingers.
Still warm.
Still responsive.
Gabriel saw the movement.
"Sadi, listen to me."
She looked through the glass.
"Mara has a reversal kit."
Matteo laughed.
"One kit."
Gabriel ignored him.
"Enzo is coming through the west corridor."
Dorsey turned slightly toward the hallway.
Matteo noticed.
"Captain."
Dorsey looked back.
"Watch the door."
That tiny distraction was enough.
Kendricks kicked the chair leg into Matteo's knee.
Matteo stumbled.
Sadi grabbed the original covenant from the terminal desk.
Dorsey fired.
The bullet tore through the paper's leather cover but missed Sadi.
Gabriel smashed the weakened glass door with a metal fire extinguisher he had ripped from the wall.
The pane exploded inward.
Dorsey turned toward him.
Sadi threw the heavy covenant binder into Dorsey's gun arm.
His shot went into the ceiling.
Gabriel came through the broken opening.
He drove his right shoulder into Dorsey.
Both men hit the floor.
Gabriel's injured left arm struck the glass edge.
He made a sound Sadi had never heard from him before.
Pain.
Raw and uncontrolled.
Dorsey rolled on top of him.
Sadi moved toward them.
Her left hand suddenly tingled.
Then went numb.
She stopped.
The drug was working.
Matteo saw it.
"There it is."
Sadi hated the satisfaction in his face.
She picked up a stainless-steel tray and swung it at him.
Matteo blocked with his forearm.
The tray bent.
He struck her across the face.
Sadi fell against the terminal.
The screen changed.
MORENO CUSTODIAN DETECTED.
Matteo grabbed her injured hand.
A lancet extended from the scanner.
Sadi realized what he was doing.
"No."
He forced her finger toward the sensor.
She fought him with her right arm.
Her left was already weakening.
Matteo's face was inches from hers.
"Your mother delayed me fourteen years."
Sadi drove her forehead into his nose.
Matteo staggered back bleeding.
"She should have delayed you longer."
The west door burst open.
Enzo entered first.
Mara followed with a trauma bag.
Victor came behind them leaning on the wall, his shirt soaked red again.
Dorsey saw Enzo and fired.
Enzo dropped behind a server cabinet.
Gabriel hit Dorsey's wrist against the floor until the gun came free.
Victor raised his own weapon toward Matteo.
Matteo stared at him.
"You should be dead."
Victor coughed.
"You have been saying that for twelve years."
Matteo reached for Dorsey's fallen gun.
Victor fired first.
The bullet struck the floor beside Matteo's hand.
"Next one is not a warning."
Gabriel looked at his brother.
"Do not kill him."
Victor laughed weakly.
"Still protecting family?"
"Protecting evidence."
Mara reached Sadi.
"Show me the injection site."
Sadi did.
Mara's face tightened.
"How much?"
"Full injector."
"Time?"
"Maybe three minutes."
Mara opened her medical bag.
She pulled out one sealed reversal kit.
Gabriel saw it.
So did Matteo.
"One dose," Matteo said.
Mara ignored him.
She checked Sadi's pulse.
Then Gabriel's.
Her expression became worse.
Sadi understood.
"Use it on him."
Gabriel looked at her.
"No."
"This is your second exposure."
"Sadi."
"Rosa's note said second exposure can stop your heart."
"You were just injected."
"You already crashed once."
Gabriel turned to Mara.
"Give it to her."
Sadi grabbed Mara's wrist with her good hand.
"Do not."
Gabriel's voice hardened.
"That was not a request."
Sadi glared at him.
"You do not order my medical care."
"Fine."
He looked at Mara.
"I am ordering mine."
Mara stared at him.
"You are refusing the reversal dose?"
"Yes."
"Documented."
"Beautiful."
"You may lose the arm."
"I know."
"You may die."
"I know."
Sadi shook her head.
"Gabriel."
He looked at her.
"Your mother used the first protocol on me."
His voice was quieter now.
"I am not taking the last one from you."
The words hit harder than Sadi expected.
Mara opened the kit.
Sadi tried to pull away.
Her left leg weakened suddenly.
She nearly fell.
Gabriel caught her with his right arm.
"That is enough arguing."
Mara administered the reversal sequence.
Cold medicine entered Sadi's vein.
Her vision blurred.
She heard Matteo laughing.
"Rosa saved a Falcone, and now a Falcone saves Rosa's daughter."
Gabriel turned toward him.
"You do not get to make that poetic."
Enzo emerged from cover and struck Dorsey with the butt of his pistol.
Dorsey collapsed.
Victor kept his weapon trained on Matteo.
Mara lowered Sadi onto a chair.
"Stay awake."
"Trying."
"Move your fingers."
Sadi flexed them.
The numbness had stopped spreading.
Mara exhaled.
"Good."
Dorsey groaned on the floor and reached toward his jacket.
Enzo kicked the captain's hand away.
A phone slid across the tile.
The screen was still unlocked.
Sadi saw a message thread at the top.
MATTEO FALCONE.
She picked it up.
"What are you doing?" Dorsey asked.
"Reading."
"That is police property."
"Tonight you keep using that word very loosely."
Enzo watched Matteo while Sadi opened the thread.
The first message was time-stamped 8:41 p.m.
WARRANT PACKET READY.
The next came at 9:04.
MORENO IS IN POSITION.
Sadi felt her stomach turn.
The warrant had not merely been prepared before the murder.
Dorsey had been receiving live updates while she served dinner.
Another message appeared at 9:19.
SHOOTER EXITED KITCHEN. BEGIN PRESS HOLD.
Another at 9:32.
WEISS COMPROMISED. CLEANUP AUTHORIZED.
Sadi looked at Dorsey.
"You knew Colin Weiss was going to die."
Dorsey said nothing.
"You knew before his body went into the freezer."
Still nothing.
Enzo's expression became colder.
"Send the thread to yourself."
Sadi did.
Then she forwarded it to Mara.
Matteo laughed bitterly.
"You think text messages convict anyone with competent counsel?"
Sadi scrolled farther.
There were photographs attached.
One showed Lucia's younger brother leaving school.
Another showed Mara entering her apartment two days earlier.
A third showed Enzo outside the old trust office three weeks before the shooting.
The conspiracy had not been watching one target.
It had been mapping every person who might interfere.
Sadi reached the final attachment.
It was a photograph of her father taken six years earlier.
Tomas was kneeling beside his car in a grocery-store parking lot.
A man in a mechanic's uniform stood near the rear wheel.
The date was two days before Tomas died.
Sadi's breath stopped.
"Enzo."
He looked over.
She showed him the photograph.
His face changed immediately.
"Save that separately."
Sadi did.
Matteo watched her.
His expression was no longer amused.
For the first time, she could see him calculating how many pieces of the old story had escaped his control.
Gabriel looked at Dorsey.
"You sold a badge for this."
Dorsey spat blood onto the floor.
"You think your family did not own badges before Matteo?"
Gabriel's face hardened.
"Maybe."
He looked toward the terminal.
"That is why this ends differently."
The computer spoke again.
FINAL PURGE AUTHORIZATION PENDING.
Victor looked at the terminal.
"We can reverse the purge."
Gabriel stared at him.
"How?"
"Dual release."
Sadi understood.
"Falcone and Moreno."
Victor nodded.
"The same blood lock Tomas used at the archive."
Gabriel moved toward the terminal.
Matteo laughed.
"You think the mirrored files save you?"
Enzo pressed his gun against Matteo's shoulder.
"They save everybody you buried."
Matteo looked at him.
"Do you know how many names are in those files?"
"Enough."
"Judges."
"Good."
"Police chiefs."
"Better."
"Members of Congress."
Enzo's expression did not move.
"Send them all."
Gabriel placed his right thumb against the Falcone scanner.
The screen confirmed his bloodline.
Mara helped Sadi stand.
Sadi placed her finger against the Moreno scanner.
The machine sampled blood.
MORENO LINE CONFIRMED.
Two options appeared.
PURGE.
RELEASE TO EXTERNAL CUSTODIANS.
Gabriel looked at Sadi.
"Your choice."
She stared at the second option.
Her mother had died to preserve these records.
Her father had spent fourteen years hiding the keys.
Gabriel's father had buried the truth out of fear.
Enzo had protected secrets until they poisoned everyone around him.
Sadi pressed RELEASE.
Gabriel pressed it at the same time.
The screen turned white.
EXTERNAL RELEASE INITIATED.
Matteo lunged.
Victor stepped in front of him.
The brothers' uncle collided with the man he had once used as a weapon.
Matteo grabbed Victor's injured chest.
Victor cried out.
His gun fell.
Matteo snatched it from the floor.
Enzo fired but missed as Matteo dragged Victor between them.
"Back."
Matteo pressed the gun beneath Victor's jaw.
Gabriel froze.
"Let him go."
Victor laughed despite the gun.
"Now you care."
"I care about not cleaning your blood off another floor."
Matteo backed toward the emergency exit.
The external release climbed through the percentages.
TWENTY-TWO.
THIRTY-FOUR.
Matteo looked at the screen.
"Stop it."
Sadi shook her head.
"No."
"Stop it, or Victor dies."
Victor looked at her.
For the first time, he did not look arrogant.
He looked tired.
"Do not stop it."
Matteo tightened the gun.
"Shut up."
Victor smiled faintly.
"You already shot me once tonight."
"I can improve my aim."
Gabriel took one step forward.
"Matteo."
Matteo looked at him.
"You wanted the family."
"I built the family."
"You poisoned my father."
"He was going to destroy everything Giovanni created."
"You tried to poison me at seventeen."
"You were never supposed to inherit."
"You killed Rosa."
Matteo's eyes moved toward Sadi.
"Rosa killed herself the moment she opened the wrong file."
Sadi felt a calm anger settle over her.
The server release reached fifty-eight percent.
A siren sounded outside the building.
Then another.
Matteo looked toward the ceiling.
Enzo smiled.
"Not Dorsey's people."
Matteo's face changed.
"Who?"
"Federal task force."
"You are bluffing."
Enzo held up his phone.
"Mara's upload went to an assistant U.S. attorney forty minutes ago."
Mara looked at him.
"I sent it to my sister."
"Your sister forwarded it."
Mara blinked.
"I really need to call her more often."
Matteo dragged Victor toward the exit.
The release reached seventy-two percent.
Then Matteo did something none of them expected.
He shoved Victor forward and ran.
Enzo caught Victor before he hit the floor.
Gabriel started after Matteo.
Mara grabbed him.
"Absolutely not."
Gabriel pulled free.
"He has the covenant."
Sadi looked at the terminal.
The leather binder was gone.
Matteo had taken it during the fight.
Victor pressed a hand to his chest.
"He is going to Route Nine."
Everyone looked at him.
"Why?" Sadi asked.
Victor's breathing was shallow.
"Because that service station was not abandoned."
Gabriel stared.
Victor continued.
"There is a G.F.H. contingency vault beneath it."
Enzo swore.
"What is in the vault?"
Victor looked at Sadi.
"The original Route Nine recording."
Sadi stopped breathing.
"Recording of what?"
Victor closed his eyes.
"The truck."
He opened them again.
"The crash."
May you like
The external release reached one hundred percent.
But Sadi was already moving toward the door.
