Chapter 8 - The Underworld’s Rage
When Gabriel returned to the Lake Forest estate at 2:00 PM, he found Carmine standing in the courtyard, his face pale and sweat pouring down his forehead.
"Where is Elena?" Gabriel asked, walking past him toward the house.
"Boss..." Carmine’s voice cracked. "She... she got a call about her mother’s grave. She left for St. Jude’s an hour ago. I sent a team after her, but..."
Carmine held up Elena’s silver cross necklace, stained with dirt. "We found her car abandoned at the cemetery gate. Moretti’s men took her."
The world inside Gabriel’s head stopped.
The air around him turned so cold that even Carmine stepped back in terror. Gabriel didn't yell. He didn't smash anything. He stood completely still, his hands slowly clenching into fists until his knuckles turned white.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. It rang instantly.
"Gabriel," Salvatore Moretti’s gravelly voice laughed through the speaker. "I hear you're fond of your little nurse."
"If you touch a single hair on her head, Salvatore," Gabriel said, his voice terrifyingly calm, "I will slaughter every man who carries your name. I will burn your empire to ash."
"You'll do what I tell you to do, Russo!" Moretti spat. "You executed my nephew. Now you're going to pay for it. Come to the abandoned meatpacking plant on 47th Street. Alone. No guards, no weapons. Bring the signed deeds to your riverfront docks."
"If I see a single one of your enforcers, the girl dies."
The line went dead.
Gabriel lowered the phone. He turned to Carmine.
"Call every capo in the city," Gabriel commanded, his eyes burning with a lethal, demonic fire. "Mobilize the entire outfit. We are going to war."
Inside the damp, freezing basement of the abandoned 47th Street meatpacking plant, Elena was tied to a wooden chair beneath a single hanging lightbulb.
Her face was bruised, and a cut bled along her hairline, but her eyes held the same fierce, unwavering determination she had shown in the NICU.
Salvatore Moretti, a heavy, balding man in his late fifties, stood before her, sipping whiskey from a glass.
"You're a pretty little thing," Moretti sneered, touching her cheek with a dirty finger. Elena pulled her head back sharply, spitting at his shoes.
Moretti laughed, slapping her across the face. "Russo really bought a high-spirited whore, didn't he?"
"Gabriel is going to kill you," Elena said, her voice dripping with venom through her bloody lips.
"Gabriel is going to walk through that door alone and sign over his docks," Moretti snorted. "And then my men are going to put a bullet in his head, and we're going to throw you into the Chicago River."
Suddenly, the heavy metal doors at the top of the stairs blew inward with a deafening explosion.
Concrete dust rained down. Screams and rapid automatic gunfire echoed from the floor above, followed by the terrifying sounds of Moretti’s guards being cut down like wheat.
Moretti panicked, pulling a revolver from his belt and aiming it at the stairs. "What the hell?! He was supposed to come alone!"
A figure stepped through the smoke at the top of the stairs.
It was Gabriel.
He walked down the concrete steps slowly, holding a shotgun in one hand and an automatic rifle in the other. Behind him poured fifty heavily armed Russo enforcers, flooding the basement within seconds, surrounding Moretti’s remaining men.
Moretti grabbed Elena, pulling her up from the chair and pressing the barrel of his revolver against her temple. "Stay back, Russo! Or I blew her brains out!"
Gabriel stopped ten feet away.
He looked at the cut on Elena’s hairline. He looked at the blood on her lip.
"Salvatore," Gabriel said softly. His voice sounded like gravel grinding in a machine. "You made three mistakes today."
"Shut up!" Moretti screamed, his hand shaking violently against Elena's head.
"First, you laid hands on the woman I love," Gabriel continued, taking a slow step forward. "Second, you thought a piece of paper would buy your life."
"Stay back!"
"And third," Gabriel whispered, his eyes locking onto Elena’s, "you forgot that she isn't just a nurse."
Elena didn't hesitate.
Using all her strength, she stomped her heavy heel down onto Moretti’s toes, leaning her head back sharply into his nose.
CRACK.
Moretti shrieked in pain, his revolver slipping from his hand as blood erupted from his broken nose.
Before he could recover, Gabriel moved like a shadow, closing the distance instantly. He grabbed Moretti by the throat, slamming him against the concrete wall with enough force to crack the brick.
Gabriel raised his weapon.
"Gabriel, no!" Elena called out, catching his arm.
Gabriel froze, his chest heaving, his eyes wild with rage. He looked at Elena.
"Don't destroy yourself for him," Elena pleaded softly, reaching up to gently touch his bloody hand. "He isn't worth it. I'm okay. Look at me... I'm okay."
The demonic fire in Gabriel’s eyes slowly faded, replaced by profound relief. He dropped Moretti to the floor, where Carmine immediately handcuffed the rival boss.
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Gabriel pulled Elena into his arms, crushing her against his chest, burying his face in her neck.
"I have you," Gabriel choked out, his voice trembling for the first time in his life. "I have you, my love."
