Chapter 2 - The Kill Zone at Navy PierThe silence in the study felt heavier than wet lead.
Through the rain-slicked panoramic glass, the Chicago skyline was a distant, bleeding smear of red brake lights and cold neon.
Matteo didn’t pull his arm away from my grip. His gaze drifted down to my fingers clutching his charcoal sleeve, then rose slowly to meet my eyes.
The fury in his face wasn't hot; it was absolute zero. The calculated, mathematical stillness of a general who had already measured the earth for twenty graves.
“Waiting in the harbor,” Matteo repeated. His voice was smooth as shaved slate.
“Yes, sir,” I breathed, the words scraping against the raw dryness of my throat. “She told Vance that two fast-attack speedboats were staged at the Navy Pier breakwater. The moment your car crossed the lower level of Wacker Drive to escort her father back to his hotel, a heavy commercial dump truck was supposed to crush your lead vehicle against the river retaining wall while the boats sprayed high-caliber armor-piercing rounds from the water.”
Matteo didn't blink. He reached down, his large, warm hand gently closing around my uninjured right wrist, freeing his cuff without breaking physical contact.
“What is your brother’s name, Maya?”
The question threw me. “Leo, sir. Leo Vance. He’s nineteen.”
“Where is he tonight?”
“In our basement apartment on 18th Street in Pilsen,” I whispered, my heart fluttering against my ribs like a trapped sparrow. “He suffers from intractable focal epilepsy. His prescription is seventy-two dollars, and without it, he goes into grand mal seizures every twenty-four hours. If I don't pay the pharmacy at nine tomorrow morning...”
Matteo reached for the desk console, tapping an internal speed dial.
“Marco.”
“Yes, Don Matteo?”
“Take two armored Suburbans to 18th Street in Pilsen. Pick up Leo Vance. Bring him directly to the private medical pavilion at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Have the chief of neurology standing by. If anyone who doesn't carry my personal seal is within three blocks of that tenement, eliminate them.”
Tears burned behind my eyelids, spilling over my lashes before I could stop them.
“Mr. Rossi... please. He thinks I work at a downtown hotel. He has no idea what this house is.”
“He will never need to know the darkness of this house, Maya,” Matteo murmured softly, his thumb gently catching a stray tear from my cheekbone with breathtaking gentleness. “In this city, nobody who bleeds to avenge my brother’s blood ever watches her family suffer. Your brother is safe.”
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He looked down at the clean white splints protecting my crushed knuckles.
“Now,” he whispered, his eyes hardening into flint. “Let us go see if my bride has finished packing her dowry.”
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