Chapter 6 - Into the Depths
"Ruby! Go!" Valente ordered, turning to the young waitress who was still frozen in shock near the door.
Ruby didn't need to be told twice. She turned and scrambled down the steep, narrow stone staircase just as the tinny voice of the assassin echoed out of the discarded phone still sitting on the desk upstairs:
“Thirty seconds remaining. Goodbye, Carmine.”
Valente was the last to descend. He grabbed the heavy steel hatch doors from the inside, pulled them down with a deafening, echoing slam, and threw the heavy deadbolt lock just as the entire building violently shuddered.
BOOM.
The sound was not a sharp crack, but a deep, rolling, concussive roar that felt like an earthquake ripping through the earth.
The shockwave hit the stone foundation with immense force. Dust, mortar, and tiny shards of debris rained down from the ceiling of the underground tunnel, pelting Ruby and the others as they tumbled down the remaining stone steps into pitch blackness.
Ruby threw her arms over her head, curling into a tight ball on the damp dirt floor as the ground shook beneath her. The roar of the explosion echoed endlessly through the ancient brick tunnels, accompanied by the distant sound of shattering glass and collapsing timber as the upper floors of Ilbastion caved in upon themselves.
Then, slowly, terrifyingly, silence returned.
A thick, choking cloud of gray dust filled the subterranean chamber, making it difficult to breathe. Ruby coughed violently, waving her hand in front of her face to clear the air.
"Is everyone... is everyone alive?" she croaked out, her voice raw from the dust.
A heavy flashlight clicked on in the darkness, cutting a sharp beam through the swirling gray haze.
Valente Carmine stood a few feet away, brushing a layer of white plaster dust off the shoulders of his charcoal suit. His face was smeared with soot, and a small scratch bled above his left eyebrow, but he stood completely upright, his breathing slow and controlled.
"We're alive," Valente said, his voice echoing in the stone vault. He swept the flashlight beam around the room.
Councilman Davis was huddled in a corner near a stack of old wooden wine crates, rocking back and forth and hyperventilating, completely catatonic with shock.
Viktor, the bodyguard, stepped out of the shadows, checking his firearm and inspecting the heavy iron reinforcement bars of the cellar exit. "The main restaurant is gone, boss. The upper floor collapsed right down into the foundation. If we had been ten feet to the left in that office, we'd be ash right now."
Valente turned his cold, calculating gaze slowly toward Ruby, who was sitting on an old wooden crate, her hands still trembling uncontrollably as the adrenaline finally began to drain from her system.
He walked over, knelt down on one knee in the dirt, and looked directly into her eyes. There was no trace of mobster coldness in his expression now—only an intense, piercing gratitude.
"You saved my life tonight, Ruby," Valente said quietly, his voice carrying absolute sincerity. "If you hadn't dropped that knife, if you hadn't gone under that table and seen what was hidden there... we would all be dead right now."
Ruby swallowed hard, her heart still hammering against her ribs. "I didn't do it for you," she whispered honestly. "I did it for the people in the dining room. I did it for the elderly couple at table six, and for Rossy, and for the people who work hard every day just to get by."
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Valente smiled—a rare, grim, but genuine smile that softened the hard lines of his face.
"An honest answer from an honest person," Valente murmured, standing back up and dusting off his knee. "In my world, Ruby, that is the rarest commodity on earth. And I always, always pay my debts."
