Chương 9 - The Siege of River North
The rooftop of the Moretti Tower in River North was fifty stories of glass and steel screaming into an angry gray sky.
I wasn't in the bunker.
I had lasted four minutes after the helicopter’s blades beat the air above the dunes before I looked at Ethan’s spare satellite phone on the desk and dialed the private line of the one person Alessandro had told me never to trust: Matteo.
*"Don't take the lift,"* I had whispered into the receiver when Matteo picked up, his voice groggy from the bunker. *"Your uncle Leo didn't clear the sensors. He’s the leak, Matteo. He’s bringing Calderone up the freight elevator."*
That twenty-second warning had bought Matteo enough time to drag Elena into the internal vault behind the penthouse study and drop the blast door.
Now, I was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat of the Sikorsky S-76 as it banked hard over the Chicago River, the city below laid out like a circuit board under a blanket of low clouds. Alessandro was in the back, checking the drum magazine on an automatic 12-gauge, his face set in lines of carved granite.
He hadn't spoken to me since I had sprinted across the sand dunes and thrown myself into the cabin before the skids left the grass. He hadn't yelled. He hadn't threatened.
He had simply pulled me into the seat, strapped the four-point harness across my chest with savage force, and pressed a spare set of tactical ear protection over my head.
"Rooftop clear!" the pilot crackled over the intercom. "Landing gear down!"
The helicopter dropped like a stone, the skids screeching against the wet concrete of the helipad.
Before the blades had even begun to cycle down, Alessandro kicked the cabin door open. The wind whipped his black wool coat around his knees as he jumped out, four of his personal guards—men who looked like they had been forged in the same furnace as Ethan—spilling out behind him.
The glass doors leading from the helipad into the penthouse were already shattered.
Inside, the sound of small-arms fire was rhythmic, concussive.
Alessandro moved through the doorway with the terrifying economy of a man doing routine maintenance. He didn't shout commands. His men fanned out, clearing the upper mezzanine of the triplex penthouse with short, controlled bursts.
I followed five paces behind, holding the Glock he had given me in the cellar, my heart in my throat.
The grand living room of the penthouse was a war zone.
Modern art was shredded by shrapnel; glass coffee tables were reduced to diamond dust across the white wool carpet. In the center of the room, behind an overturned steel dining table, stood Sal Calderone.
He was forty-five, wiry, with the sunken, yellow-tinged skin of a heavy smoker and eyes that looked like they hadn't seen sleep since the wedding bells rang yesterday morning. In his left hand, he held Elena by the hair, a snub-nosed .38 pressed hard beneath her jaw.
Beside him, clutching an empty Beretta with trembling, blood-slicked fingers, was Leo Vitucci.
Matteo was on the floor six feet away, clutching his side where a dark crimson stain was spreading rapidly through his white dress shirt.
"Moretti!" Calderone screamed, his voice raw, bouncing off the floor-to-ceiling glass that looked out over the Sears Tower. "Drop the iron! Drop it, or I paint the windows with Matteo's little bride!"
Alessandro stopped.
He didn't lower the 12-gauge. He held it at low ready, his finger resting casually alongside the trigger guard.
"Leo," Alessandro said, his tone conversational, as if he were inquiring about the weather at the golf club. "You picked a very expensive day to double down on the ponies."
Leo Vitucci was sobbing, his silk tie crooked, his face gray with terror. "Alessandro... they were going to kill my boys! Antonio swore he’d skin them if I didn't open the basement gates!"
"Antonio is in a federal holding cell in Elgin," Alessandro said, his voice flat. "Your boys are currently in my custody at the Drake. They’ve had their breakfast. Whether they have dinner depends on what you do in the next five seconds."
Leo looked at Calderone, his eyes wild with the realization that he had traded his life for an alliance that no longer existed.
"Shoot him, Leo!" Calderone barked, his arm tightening around Elena’s neck, the girl letting out a thin, strangulated whimper. "Shoot the bastard!"
Leo’s hand shook. He raised the empty Beretta toward Alessandro.
*Click.*
The hammer fell on an empty chamber.
Alessandro didn't even look at him. "Ethan."
From the shadow of the service stairwell behind Leo, Ethan Blake—his left arm still bound, his right holding a suppressed .22—fired once.
Leo Vitucci collapsed forward onto his face without a sound, a neat, bloodless hole in the center of his forehead.
Elena screamed.
Calderone’s eyes widened in sudden, animal panic. He began to pull the trigger on the .38 beneath Elena’s jaw—
I didn't think.
I didn't check for clearance.
I stepped out from behind Alessandro’s shoulder, raised the Glock with both hands, and fired through the glass display case between us.
The 9mm round didn't hit Calderone; it shattered the heavy bronze statuette on the marble pedestal beside his ear. The concussive blast of bronze and marble shrapnel tore into the right side of his face, shredding his ear and his eye in an instant.
Calderone howled, his grip on Elena slipping as his hands flew to his ruined face.
Elena dropped to the floor, scrambling on her hands and knees toward Matteo.
Alessandro didn't fire the shotgun.
He crossed the twenty feet of carpet in three terrifying strides, caught Calderone by the throat with his bare left hand, and lifted the two-hundred-pound hitman completely off his feet, driving him back through the already-cracked panoramic window.
The glass gave way with a sound like a small bomb.
The freezing Chicago wind roared into the room, sending papers and blood-stained silk spinning into the vortex.
Alessandro held Calderone forty-nine stories above the concrete of River North, suspended by his throat over the void. Calderone’s legs kicked frantically at the empty air, his hands clawing at Alessandro’s iron wrist, his single good eye rolling back in pure, unadulterated terror.
"Wait!" Calderone choked out, blood spraying from his ruined mouth into the wind. "Wait! Antonio paid—"
"I know what he paid," Alessandro said, his voice quiet, clear, audible even over the roar of the gale. "And now you're going to deliver the receipt."
Alessandro opened his fingers.
There was no scream—only the sudden, violent rush of air as the hitman vanished into the gray fog below.
Alessandro stood on the precipice of the broken window, the wind howling around his broad shoulders, his dark coat billowing like the wings of a predatory bird. He turned slowly, looking down at Matteo, who was being held by Elena, the young bride crying tears of relief into her husband's neck.
"Get him to the private floor at Northwestern," Alessandro said to Ethan, who had already produced a field dressing for Matteo’s side. "He’ll live."
Then, Alessandro turned his slate-gray eyes to me.
I stood there in my torn clothes, the smoking Glock still held in my hands, my hair whipped wild by the high-altitude wind, barefoot on the ruined carpet of the richest penthouse in Chicago.
Alessandro walked toward me.
He didn't stop until his chest was pressed against mine, his large hands coming down to close over my trembling fingers, gently taking the gun from my grip and tossing it onto the table.
He didn't care about the broken glass. He didn't care about the wind freezing the blood on his knuckles.
He pulled me into him, his arms locking around my waist, lifting me off the floor until my face was buried in the warm curve of his neck.
"You shot the bronze," he murmured into my hair, his chest rumbling against mine with a strange, dark laughter.
"It was a larger target," I gasped, my fingers clutching his back, holding onto the anchor of him against the storm.
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"Smart girl," he whispered, his lips finding mine in front of his brother, in front of Ethan, in front of the entire ruined empire of River North. "My smart, impossible girl."
***
