16. SILVER DAWN
GIOELE
The Santa Colombini demolish Il Lince’s safe house room by room. For each space they pass, they blast up beds, nightstands, and cabinets. They blow pictures off the walls. I peer into ravaged rooms on my way past, watch feathers fly from destroyed duvets.
This needs to be over. I need all Santa Colombini in on this stiff and gone—with the exception of one. A single one. I need one hostage, and it has to be the right person, someone who can lead me to Silvina.
The dog park is the last stop before the end of the corridor. With our enemies in the bunker with us, I see what a death trap Il Lince has constructed here. The bomb shelter is a dead end. There’s no way out, no tunnel leading to safety. The only option is to fend off whoever’s on the outside.
But it’s also the last stop for the intruders; if someone’s behind them like we are now, they can only turn their backs toward the shelter and fight until death or victory.
Felix’ men are highly trained. Cold-blooded and professional, they fire off round after round until they’re out of ammunition. Then, they dive into hand-to-hand combat. They pull knives, throw stars, shit that surprises the Santa Colombini who bite dust in hordes around them. I wish we’d been here before they took Silvina.
I reach the dog park. The door is open with a few Colombini inside. Another waves for them to get out, but I push him inside instead. Guess I get to try out my grenade theory. I rip out the pin, throw the grenade into the dog park, and slam the door closed. With a single turn of the wrist, I’ve locked them in with fate.
The walls rattle, and the door shoots open behind me. Inside, the benches blaze with the savage orange of no return, and maimed, the Colombini will never threaten my family again.
Instincts skyrocket during battle, and now, there’s a shift in the air. Maybe it’s the dog park and its blatant violence, such a mass destruction with its lack of concern for the thereafter.
The focus is changing. Colombinis turn and stalk straight at Felix’ men. They burst under their gunfire. Fight their way past his warriors. I clip a few too, but then I’m hand-to-hand with a third. He gets a shot in at my shoulder. The pain blinds me. I hunch over, retreating until I hit the wall with my back. I can hear them stalk past me, and it’s a fucking pisser.
“You okay?” Felix shouts.
“Yeah, man. Go get them.”
It takes me a minute. Once my eyes work again, I’m facing a corridor void of battle. Still bodies are strewn down the path toward the living room. Others writhe and groan under their breaths. I hiss air in through my teeth against the throbbing in my shoulder. I straighten. Then, I do what I’ve been trained to do since I was ten.
Meticulously, I study each one. I tell Felix’ guys we’re coming back for them. The Colombinis who are still conscious, I check to see if they’re important. When they aren’t, I cut their misery short with a bullet.
By the bomb shelter, I recognize Elio Barezi, one of Randolfo’s most trusted men. I pull him up by his jacket. “You’re coming with me. I’ve got a few questions for you.”
Too late, I realize I’ve misjudged him. He’s wounded, and there’s a gun on the ground next to him. I just didn’t see the one in the hand he’s got twisted behind his back. Disfigured, it’s still clutching the weapon tightly. He’s trying to lift it at me.
When he can’t, I snarl out a laugh. This man. He was the leader of the Santa Colombini’s human trafficking ring a few years ago. I guess he’ll finally be a victim himself. If anyone knows where they’ve taken Silvina, it’s him.
His gun goes off before I can wrench it out of his hand. A stray shot? He goes heavy in my grip. I don’t understand.
I stare down, studying his face. His eyes are draining of life. What the hell? Farther down, there’s blood spreading over his chest.
I grab his gun, toss it aside, and jostle him to the floor with my healthy arm. Then, I turn his limp body around. Great. The asshole just shot himself through the back. Talk about contortionist mobility.
“You son of a bitch,” I mutter, tossing him to the ground. Guess all you need is your arm broken the right way. “I hope you rot in hell.”
I swear his face just froze on a grin.
I stalk toward the bomb shelter. Once there, I peer down the hallway to make sure I’m alone. I press my mouth against the seam of the door. “Zia Paula, it’s me, Gioele. Are you okay?”
“Gioele! Dio mio. Yes, we’re fine. Is everyone okay out there?”
I puff out air. Should I lie?
“That was the Santa Colombini. We’ve chased them out, but stay where you are until I come back, all right? I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Zio Gioele!” Ariadna’s light pitch reaches me. “I was so scared. Can I come out?”
“No, baby, not yet. We want to clean up a little first.”
“But I can help!”
“Sure you can, just not yet. Listen to Zia Paula, all right? We’ll be back for you very soon.”
“Is my babbo there?”
“No, but I’ll get you to him very, very soon. Your babbo is fine.” As I say it, I realize I don’t know how Isaias is. I pull up my cell. Shit. No signal, of course.
“I’ll be right back, okay? Sing for each other in the meantime.” I think I’m winging it, until I recall the countless times when I was little, with Ma and Gabriela leading the song down here.
“Oh, yes! Zia Paula,” I hear from inside, in Ariadna’s sweet voice. “Do you know this song? My mamma used to sing it for me, and then my babbo did too:
Fa la ninna, fa la nanna
Nella braccia della mamma
Fa la ninna bel bambin,
Fa la nanna bambin bel,
Fa la ninna, fa la nanna
Nella braccia della mamma.
It’s funny how some people always makes you smile.
Alone, I plod the metal steps up from the bunker. Alone, I tip my head over the AstroTurf. Once there, the first thing I register is a small slice of silver sky.
Beneath me lies a haven that’s lost all meaning to my family. Decades’ worth of history as an unbroken harbor ruined in minutes. The Santa Colombini jammed it full of evil, and it’d be death for us to use again.
But what I see is the sky. It holds that crazy charcoal color before the sun breaks blackness with red. I don’t see the bodies. I don’t see the discarded guns. The first thing I see is the sky.
The waterfall is the exception; my mother’s pride, her exotic backyard, is intact in an eerie contrast to the destruction underground. I want her to see it. She’ll be happy! A quick scan of the exterior of our home shows that they were never out to get anything but the bunker. Why? I know why.
I jog through the backyard. Fritz is at the front of the house. Bully too. Felix’ guys are lugging surviving Santa Colombini into the backs of their vans and shoving the dead into their trucks. It’s grizzly. The sight is a goddamn fucking relief. When Felix spots me, he strides over, shakes my hand like we’ve conducted business, and I guess, I guess we fucking just did.
“Ready downstairs?” he says.
I haven’t looked at him much before. Felix is a strangely pale man in his mid-thirties. His hair is so black it’s odd against that skin tone, and his eyes could be made of flint if it weren’t for the compassion running through them right now.
“Yeah. The area clear above ground?” I ask.
“It is. A few Colombinis escaped. We’ve combed Hidden Hills and the immediate surroundings, but they’re gone. We gotta clean up fast, though. The LAPD wants in.”
I squint at him. “We got loud up here, huh?”
“We did.” He chuckles drily. “My guy at the station’s having a hard time keeping the cops at bay.”
Fritz, Bully, Felix, and I are the first to make the metal stairs sing on our way down into the bunker. The closer I get to the bomb shelter, the lighter I feel.
“You want to…?” Felix tips his head toward the darkened entrails of the west corridor.
“Not yet.” I send a stare over the dead and wounded scattered throughout.
“Oh, right. We don’t wanna scare the kids.”
“Yeah.” My father never appeared. I haven’t called Tatiana or Isaias, and yet I know with one hundred percent certainty what we have to do next. “Felix?”
He turns to me. The man is at least ten years my senior, with experience in his field to show for it, but when I tell him my plan, his eyes instantly harden in agreement.
Fifteen minutes later, all Colombini bodies have been lugged inside the dog park. We’ve unhinged a bedroom door and hooked it up instead of the blackened remnants that covered the cave before. Felix and the others are carrying their dead and wounded away, and when I can’t see them anymore, I walk toward the bomb shelter.
“Sempre insieme,” I whisper through the seam of the door.
A whoop! sounds from the inside, and the door clicks open almost immediately.
Ariadna rushes out first. She doesn’t even look at me before she throws thin arms around my middle and clings to my waist. Stunned, I glance down. It’s usually her father who gets this treatment. I squeeze her close to me, savoring the feeling of something purely good on such an evil night.
Teary-eyed women and children pour out behind her. I smirk when dogs and a few cats are carried out too. As I swoop up my aunt and the twins, hugging them tight, I can’t help soaking in the sight of everyone. They’re so clean. They look like nothing happened down here, like they weren’t seconds from demolition caused by hate in its most distilled form.
These humans are what matters. It’s what we’re here for, all of us.
If it weren’t for them, would any of this be worth it?
Is it worth it?
“Basta!” my aunt tells those who cry out in shock over the destruction they pass. A stern stare, then another. She does what I should have done, their impromptu savior. They quiet down—for the children, I’m sure.
I’ve been that little boy in the back before, the one with the rebellious stare and the clenched teeth. He wishes he never had to be down here.
Felix meets us in the mudroom. “All here?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I wave our family upward, watching them take step by step, the metal accepting each rounded heel. The sound is hope. It’s the color right before dawn. I wish it were a new dawn for them to take that last step out of the bunker.
I let go of Ariadna. “Go with Zia Paula, okay? I’ll be right there.”
“But my babbo?” she asks so pitifully.
“I need to fix something down here first, and then I’ll take you to him.” I bend down and kiss her forehead.
She looks down, holding onto my hand for that one extra second that makes my heart constrict. Then, she drops her hold on me and starts on the stairs too.
“Zia,” I call out.
Zia Paula’s hand clenches the banister as she swings to me from the second flight.
“I trust you to bring everyone to the front yard in two minutes sharp. Don’t leave anyone behind in the backyard.”
She sends me a look that doesn’t question, the one that says, D’accordo, figlio, and the trust she puts in me gives awe.
Felix and I wait until they’re upstairs. Until we hear no more soft, sweet, chattering voices. When two minutes have passed, we retreat to the dog park. I open the door, making sure all is how we left it. Felix holds up the three grenades I ordered. We rip out the pins, throw them in, shut the door, and run for our lives toward the metal stairway.
With our asses planted on the AstroTurf at the top, we wait. A few minutes later, it’s clear that the tomb we’ve made for the Colombinis hasn’t affected the entire bunker.
I send him a whaddaya-think look?
He grins and shrugs. “Up for a look? We gotta hurry. My LAPD guy’s dying down there.”
“Sure.”
The corridor with the bedrooms has disappeared. I kick at the avalanche of dirt covering it. Felix prods with a broken lamp but doesn’t get any deeper in than I do.
“Good as it gets?” I suggest. It makes him chuckle.
“Yeah. Let’s cover our tracks above ground and get the hell out of here.”