Chapter 5
Chapter 5
“They found the guards,” Chloe said, snatching the ledger and shoving it deep into her coat. “Vance’s tactical unit. We can’t climb back out through the loading bay. They’ll bottle us inside this freezer.”
“There is an old outflow pipe,” Lorenzo coughed, forcing himself to his feet by sheer will. “It drains the condensation into the Chicago River canal behind the train depot. But the water is nearly freezing tonight.”
“Freezing water beats a hollow-point bullet in the base of the skull,” Chloe replied, pulling his good arm over her shoulder. “Move your legs, Lorenzo. We aren’t dying in your father’s icebox.”
They crawled through the narrow maintenance pipe as shotgun blasts tore through the steel door behind them. The concussive booms resonated through the iron pipe, vibrating deep in their chests as they dragged themselves forward.
The pipe dumped them into the black, churning waters of the south fork canal. The shock of the icy river took Chloe’s breath away, but she kicked hard, holding Lorenzo’s head above the oily surface with one arm.
They dragged themselves onto a muddy bank beneath the shadow of the Interstate bridge. Lorenzo collapsed onto the wet gravel, shivering violently, his teeth chattering so hard he could barely form words in the darkness.
“We need... dry clothes,” he managed to say, his lips tinged with blue. “And a doctor who doesn’t ask... questions about mafia lead.”
“I know a place,” Chloe said, pulling him beneath the shelter of a concrete pillar. “A place Daniel set up before he died. An emergency safe house that never appeared in any federal registry or witness database.”
She flagged down a derelict cab on the industrial boulevard, holding a bundle of wet hundred-dollar bills from Lorenzo’s inner pocket. The driver took one look at the blood and cash and looked straight ahead.
Twenty minutes later, they were inside a third-floor brownstone in Bridgeport, hidden behind a shuttered storefront. The air inside smelled of dust and sealed rooms, untouched for almost a decade since Daniel’s death.
Chloe laid Lorenzo across an old oak dining table, pulling a surgical kit from a recessed panel in the bathroom wall. Her hands worked with clinical speed, cutting away his ruined shirt and swabbing the wound.
“Bite this,” she said, placing a rolled leather strap between his teeth. He shook his head, spitting it out onto the floorboards with a defiant look that made her pause with the forceps poised.
“I’ve taken worse from my own kin,” Lorenzo whispered through clenched teeth. “Dig the lead out, Evelyn Cross. Let’s see if your brother taught you how to finish what you start.”
She didn’t hesitate. The silver prongs slid into the wound, metal scraping against lead with a sickening click. Lorenzo’s knuckles turned white against the table edges, but not a single cry escaped his throat.
With a sharp pull, she dropped the deformed bullet into a glass saucer. It clattered with a loud, final chime that seemed to clear the room of ghosts, leaving only the steady drum of rain outside.
She stitched the torn muscle with nylon thread, her fingers brushing against the old scars on his chest and shoulder. Lorenzo watched her face in the soft light of an amber floor lamp, his breathing slowly stabilizing.
“You’re very gentle for a woman who just killed four men,” he said, the color gradually returning to his aristocratic features. “Where did you learn the surgical work? The witness protection program doesn’t teach suturecraft.”
“Daniel was paranoid,” she murmured, wrapping clean gauze around his chest. “He knew the department had leaks. Every weekend we spent together wasn’t at the beach; it was at tactical ranges and triage workshops.”
“He loved you,” Lorenzo observed quietly. “And he died trying to keep you away from men like me. Yet here you are, patching up the head of the Capello family in a forgotten federal tomb.”
“I’m not patching up the head of a family,” Chloe said, tying off the bandage. “I’m keeping an ally alive until we put Victor in the dirt and Vance in an orange jumpsuit. Tomorrow, Chicago belongs to nobody.”
She walked to the window, peering through the slats of the wooden blinds. The city skyline rose in the distance, a glittering forest of glass and light that concealed the rot eating its foundation from within.
Lorenzo sat up, testing the shoulder with a grimace. He walked over to the side table and opened Daniel’s old strongbox, pulling out two heavy service pistols that had been cleaned and greased eight years prior.
“Victor has called a council meeting for tomorrow night at the Palmer House,” Lorenzo said, checking the slide on the weapon. “He thinks I am dead. He will present my obituary and claim the Capello throne.”
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“And Vance will be in the gallery,” Chloe added, turning back to him. “Waiting to receive his share of the port authority contracts. They think they’ve won because they buried Daniel and drowned Evelyn Cross.”
—END OF Chapter 5,
