It struck his shoulder, giving Elena enough time to slam a tray into his face.
They pushed through the kitchen and reached the back exit.
It would not open.
A chain had been wrapped around the exterior handles.
“They trapped us,” Rosie said.
Elena scanned the kitchen.
One narrow window sat above the sink, too small for either woman to climb through.
The rear delivery hatch near the floor was wider, but a refrigerator stood in front of it.
Together, they shoved the refrigerator aside.
In the dining room, furniture crashed.
Nico shouted Matteo’s name.
Rosie dropped to her knees and pulled open the hatch.
“How did you know to come back?” Elena asked.
“You never called me.”
Rosie crawled halfway through, then looked back.
“And the attorney called my house.”
“Mara?”
“She said if the lights went out, bring help.”
A distant siren rose beyond the alley.
The attackers heard it too.
“Move!” someone yelled from the dining room.
Elena pushed Rosie through the hatch, then turned back.
Matteo was still inside.
She could leave him.
He was a criminal, the heir to the family that had concealed her mother’s murder.
His guilt had arrived nine years too late.
But he was also the man who had gathered the evidence.
The man who had chosen surrender over silence.
And if Nico escaped with him, Sofia’s statement might be buried again.
Elena closed the hatch and ran back into the diner.
Nico was dragging Matteo toward the broken entrance.
The broad man had recovered his gun.
The other attacker was searching beneath tables.
Elena stepped behind the counter and held up the blue folder.
“Looking for this?”
Every man stopped.
Nico released Matteo.
“Put it down.”
“The recording is inside.”
It was a lie, but Nico did not know that.
Elena backed toward the kitchen stove, where a burner still held a small blue flame supplied by the gas line.
“You burn it, and you burn the only proof your mother mattered,” Nico said.
“My mother mattered before there was proof.”
Nico’s composure slipped.
He raised his pistol.
Matteo moved first.
He struck Nico’s arm as the gun fired.
The bullet shattered the pie display.
Elena dropped behind the counter, pulling the folder safely against her chest.
Red and blue lights flooded the windows.
“Federal agents!” a voice thundered.
“Drop your weapons!”
Nico turned toward the door and found six armed agents surrounding the entrance.
More entered through the kitchen after cutting the chain.
Mara Chen followed them wearing a dark coat over a rumpled suit.
