CHAPTER 180 Crawl Space

*Pete*

I turned my head and stared out of the car window, reliving our escape.

Once I was away from the tall windows of Lorenzo's bedroom , I propped myself up into a squatting position, ran towards the door and exited the bedroom, leaving the Consigliere behind.

*It was every man for himself*.

However, it was worse outside than I had anticipated. From my vantage point atop the grand staircase, it was chaos downstairs. Bullets were coming in from all directions, shattering the glass windows, destroying the expensive paintings that hung along the white walls, and breaking the antique porcelain vases perched atop the vintage wooden table near the bottom of the stairs. I searched desperately for any of the Colonel's men, hoping they could provide me some cover so I could escape. Unfortunately, I didn't see anyone nor did I hear any voices, although there seemed to be gunfire coming from right outside the mansion.

Luckily, I brought a spare gun with me. I took it out from its ankle holster and made sure the safety was off.

I knew of another way out of this house, but it was through a secret tunnel that led to the small chapel located behind the mansion. The tunnel was mentioned to my mother when she was given a tour of the estate by the Mexican Envoy during a formal dinner party she attended in honor of the consulate's donors.

All I needed to do was climb down the stairs at the expense of getting shot at.

I was still weighing my options when I suddenly heard gunshots from Lorenzo's room. *Our attackers must already be inside the estate*. I couldn't wait it out any longer. I had to make a run for it.

With my back against the wall, I quickly went down the stairs, my finger resting on the trigger of my gun... in case I had to shoot.

"Pedro, where are you going?" Lorenzo suddenly whispered, making me jump in fright. He had a gold colored pistol in his hands which was aimed at the floor down below.

"Quit it with the stupid questions and just follow me!" I muttered under my breath, stopping three steps from the bottom of the staircase. There was sunlight shining on those three steps which meant our attackers had a clear line of sight.

I raised my fist to stop Lorenzo from speaking so I could listen for the location of the gunfire. There was a moment of silence before I heard gunshots erupting from afar.

As expected, another set of bullets began hitting the vintage table several feet away from us. I flattened myself against the wall while the Consigliere went back up a few steps to avoid the splinters of wood that flew from the table.

"Once enemy fire siezes, we will turn left and head toward the kitchen. From there, we will enter the basement where a hidden door opens to a tunnel that leads to the chapel behind the estate," I quickly explained to the Consigliere.

"Good to know there's a way out of this place," Lorenzo replied dryly. "Do you think this is Mayor Cohen's doing?" I shook my head.

"It must be the Black Hawks I hired to serve as my private army. This is in retaliation against the Colonel and his men," I blurted out.

"You know about this?!" He asked, surprised.

"No, of course not. If I did, I wouldn't be here with you trying to escape," I pointed out. "Just follow my lead and cover me from behind." He nodded and positioned his gun in front of him.

"Sure," he agreed. "Lead the way."

I waited for the gunshots to stop before gesturing to him. "Let's go."

We ran past the living room and the dining room, then headed to the back of the house where the kitchen was located. As soon as we entered the kitchen, the gunfire resumed once again. We both dropped to our knees and hid behind the long marble island in the middle of the elegant black and white kitchen.

"Where's the basement?" Lorenzo asked before wiping the sweat off his upper lip with the back of his hand. I pointed to the pantry door which was across from us.

"Inside the pantry," I answered. "There's a shelf that doubles as the door to the basement. Come on. We have to crawl our way to the door."

On all fours, I crawled to the black pantry door with Lorenzo right behind me, then I reached up for the doorknob and pushed the pantry door wide open. After Lorenzo locked the door behind him, I stood up, walked to the end of the small room toward the wooden shelf stacked with cookbooks and moved it to reveal a set of concrete stairs leading down to the basement below.

I gestured to the Consigliere to enter. Once we were both inside, I swung the shelf back to its prior position, surrounding us in darkness.

I quickly took my smartphone out and turned my phone's flashlight function on.

"Turn that thing off," Lorenzo whispered. "If someone's down there, they'll see us."

"But I can't see. What if I stumble and fall? I could break my neck," I argued.

"There are a few egress windows in the basement. We just need to wait for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. So turn that thing off now!" He ordered. I muttered a curse before reluctantly turning my phone's flashlight off.

"I don't know what your problem is. If someone's actually down there, they've already heard us arguing," I stated, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the surrounding darkness.

"You have a point. But as I said, there are windows. They might see the light from outside. Anyway, my eyes have adjusted to the dark and I can see a faint light," Lorenzo said, tentatively walking down a few steps. "I'll go down first, so if you stumble, I can catch you."

Luckily, we were able to go down the stairs without any problems. Yet, even though we were in the basement, I could hear the muffled sounds of ongoing gunfire. We definitely needed to escape.

I gestured to Lorenzo to wait at the bottom of the stairs and to shoot if anyone were to open the basement door while I looked around.

I slowly made my way through the basement which was filled with antiques, dusty boxes, wooden crates, and tools. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I found what I was looking for. At the far end corner was the wine cellar.

I quickly went back for Lorenzo and guided the Consigliere to a wine rack that laid against a brick wall.

"Help me push this thing aside," I said. With all our might, we pushed the wine rack to find a small square door at the bottom of the wall. I slid the door open and peered inside. It was too dark to see anything.

"Give me your phone and unlock it please," Lorenzo ordered after squatting down beside me.

"What now?" I asked, hesitating.

"Just give me your goddamn phone!" He hissed. Reluctantly, I handed him my phone. He turned the flashlight on and looked inside.

"This isn't a tunnel, Pedro," Lorenzo whispered angrily, surveying the inside of the small space. "This is a-"

"Crawl space which leads to the other side of the fence," I cut him off, utterly annoyed. "Now isn't the time to argue terminologies, Consigliere. Either you crawl your way out of here or you can stay here and wait for those crazy motherfuckers to put two in your skull. Judging by the gunfire, they're near." There was actually no way for me to know that, but I had to get him to enter the crawl space. "So what's it going to be?"

He placed his gun back in his shoulder holster and pushed me aside. "Fine. But I go first. You cover me."

"Be my guest," I muttered, grabbing my phone from him. "And use your own damn phone as a flashlight." He scowled at me as he fished his phone out from his pocket. He quickly turned its flashlight on then entered the small space, muttering curses under his breath.

It was tight, but I was able to fit inside. Due to the injuries I sustained from Ariana and her uncle's men, I lost so much weight. That's what you get from being on a liquid diet. I guess there was a silver lining to that hellish ordeal.

I was glad to find the crawl space was cemented, but it was dank and dusty with cobwebs everywhere. Sure, I hated spiders, but I valued my life. Spiders weren't going to get it my way of staying alive.

From time to time, as we made our way to the chapel, I looked back to check if anyone was following us. Although the crawl space wasn't in the original blueprints of the *Casa de Flores*, I wasn't able to move the wine rack back to its original position.

So far, I didn't hear anyone following us nor did I even see a light. That was a good sign.

While we made our way through the small tunnel, I silently prayed no one was waiting for us on the other side of this crawl space. However, if a Black Hawk happened to be there, I could probably negotiate on our behalf and offer to pay them more money in exchange for our lives.

My knees and elbows were beginning to hurt when Lorenzo called out, the glee in his voice evident. "I can see a light. We're almost there!"

*Oh*, *thank God*. We were finally at the end of the tunnel.

After several more moments of crawling, we finally reached the end of the crawl space. I could see the light shining through the cracks of the small square door that resembled the one at the mansion. I instructed Lorenzo to slide the door open.

He turned his flashlight off and pocketed his phone before placing both of his hands against the wood panel. However, before he could move it himself, the wood cover to the crawl space suddenly slid open and two hands reached inside, pulling Lorenzo out of the crawl space.

I reached for my gun and quickly crawled forward, aiming at the legs of the person who had just grabbed the Consigliere. Before I could squeeze the trigger, a man squatted down.

"No need to shoot, Pete," the Colonel said, his hands up in surrender. I heaved a sigh of relief and crawled out.

"How did you know about the crawl space?" I asked, surprised.

"Secret," the Colonel answered, winking at me.

"Okay. And how did you know it was us?" I asked as I stood up and began to dust myself off.

"Two likely scenarios. One, you instigated the attack on us which would mean you'd likely stay at the mansion or two, you didn't plan the attack and would use the tunnel that leads to the chapel to escape. Of course, there's the part where I had audio-visual surveillance installed in every part of the mansion," he explained, his intelligent eyes twinkling as he helped Lorenzo brush some of the dust off his shoulders. "I'd like to thank you, Pete. Without you, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to kill off our fiercest competitor. Do you smell that?"

I inhaled, catching the scent of something burning. "It smells like smoke," I answered, confused.

"That's right, Pete. The mansion is on fire with the dead in it," the Colonel bragged, grinning from ear to ear. He checked his watch. "We have to go if you want to use the parade as cover. Mr. Ortiz, we have a car waiting for you outside. And there's no need to worry. My men have collected your things."

"Where's Nestor?" Lorenzo asked as he followed the Colonel through the empty chapel.

"Oh, Noah? He left early. He said he needed to go see his girlfriend and check on a few things," the Colonel answered, pushing the chapel's doors wide open.

We exited the chapel to find a man standing beside a black SUV, waiting for us.

The man, I noticed, looked Mexican and was wearing a yellow polo shirt, black jeans and black leather shoes. Once he saw the Colonel, he opened the car door to the backseat and ushered us inside before entering the driver's seat.

"Pete!"

A voice shouted my name, making me jump in fright. That was the second time in one day.

I turned my head and suddenly saw Joy's face. I felt my heart pound against my rib cage.

My mouth dried up, my hands started shaking and I began to sweat... cold hard sweat that smelled of fear.

*My death was inevitable*.

"Pedro, what's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."