Chapter 2 - Blood on the DocksThe rain coming off Lake Michigan was mixed with sleet, slashing against the blacked-out glass of the armored Chevrolet Suburban.
Inside the heavy leather interior, the air was thick with the smell of wet wool, gunpowder, and tobacco. Luke sat in the front passenger seat, an unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear, nervously tapping his fingers against the stock of his compact submachine gun. In the back, my custom wheelchair was clamped securely into the modified floor track. I sat upright, wearing a long black cashmere overcoat that concealed the sleek SIG Sauer nestled in my shoulder holster.
"He's brought eight guys, Danny," Luke muttered, looking at the thermal feed on his handheld monitor. "All armed. Moretti isn't here to negotiate your territorial boundaries. He thinks he's coming to execute a broken man."
"Let him think," I said smoothly, checking the action on my pistol with practiced, effortless rhythm. "A man who thinks his enemy is weak buys his own coffin before the conversation even begins."
The Suburban rolled into the hollow, echoing expanse of Warehouse 14—a massive, rusted steel structure on the edge of the Chicago River. Industrial floodlights hummed overhead, casting harsh white glare over stacks of shipping containers and puddles of oily water.
Parked in the center of the floor were three black Cadillac Escalades.
Standing in front of the middle car was Sal Moretti—a fifty-year-old mid-level crew chief who had grown fat, arrogant, and ambitious during my two-year retreat behind my estate walls. Beside him stood six heavy-set enforcers in leather coats, their hands resting ominously inside their pockets.
The driver’s side ramp of my Suburban lowered with a mechanical whir. Luke stepped out first, followed by four of my personal security team, their rifles held at low-ready.
Then, the hydro-electric lift lowered my chair onto the slick concrete floor.
Sal Moretti let out a loud, booming laugh that bounced off the corrugated steel walls of the warehouse. He took a drag from his cigar and stepped forward, spreading his arms wide in mock reverence.
"Well, look at this!" Sal sneered, his yellowing teeth gleaming beneath the floodlights. "The great Danny Vance! The king of the West Side! They told me you were sitting in a chair these days, Danny, but I had to see it with my own eyes. Look at you! They put you in a stroller!"
His men chuckled, a low, nervous rumble. My guards shifted their feet, their eyes darting to me, waiting for the order to turn the warehouse into a slaughterhouse.
I didn't blink. I rolled my chair forward until I was ten feet away from Sal, my hands resting calmly over my lap.
"Sal," I said, my voice quiet, flat, and chillingly clear. "You took three trucks of high-value electronics out of my Detroit yard on Tuesday. You killed a fifty-year-old driver who had three kids. You broke the agreement we made with your boss three years ago."
Sal’s laughter died instantly. He spat on the concrete, his face hardening into an ugly mask of sweat and rage.
"Your agreement was made when you could walk like a man, Danny!" Sal snapped, taking two aggressive steps closer, bending down until his sweaty, florid face was six inches from mine. "You've been hiding in that Oak Brook mansion for two years while the rest of us do the real work on the streets! You’re done, Danny. The Chicago families decided last night. We’re splitting your shipping terminals three ways. You keep your house, you keep your money, and you shut your mouth. Otherwise, the next sniper doesn't hit your spine—he puts a bullet right between those pretty gray eyes."
I looked into Sal’s eyes. I smelled the stale bourbon on his breath.
"You always were a terrible negotiator, Sal," I whispered.
In a single, fluid motion that defied the very concept of my physical limitation, my hand flashed beneath my cashmere coat. Before Sal’s brain could even register the movement, the cold steel barrel of my suppressed SIG Sauer was pressed firmly against the underside of his chin.
The entire warehouse froze. Sal’s men raised their weapons instantly, but my four guards already had red laser dots painted directly across their chests and foreheads.
Sal’s eyes went wide as saucers, his cigar slipping from his lips and tumbling into a puddle below.
"You think sitting in this chair makes me weak, Sal?" I murmured, leaning forward in my seat, driving the barrel tighter into his jawbone until his head tilted back. "This chair just means I don't waste time running away. It means I don't hesitate. It means I have nothing left to lose except the reputation I spent fifteen years building."
"Danny..." Sal choked out, his hands trembling as he held them up in absolute surrender. "Danny, wait... I was just... I was just delivering a message from the council..."
"Here’s my response for the council," I said softly.
I shifted the barrel two inches to the left and pulled the trigger once.
A muffled THWACK echoed through the warehouse. Sal screamed, collapsing onto the concrete, clutching his shattered kneecap as blood welled up through his torn trousers.
His men took a collective step back, horror plastered across their faces as my guards stepped forward, locking the room down with deadly precision.
I looked down at Sal writhing in agony on the concrete floor, weeping like a child, gripping his destroyed leg.
"Tell the council," I said, holstering my weapon and wiping a speck of grease from my sleeve, "that if anyone else wants to test my mobility, they should bring a bigger army. Luke, take the trucks back. Burn the Escalades."
I hit the control toggle on my armrest, turning my chair around and rolling back toward the Suburban ramp without looking back once.
It was four in the morning when the Suburban pulled back through the heavy iron gates of the Oak Brook estate.
The rain had turned into a steady, freezing mist. The high adrenaline that had coursed through my veins at the docks was beginning to fade, replaced by a agonizing wave of fatigue and the dreaded, familiar creeping heat of phantom nerve spasms.
I wheeled myself through the quiet, dimly lit main hall toward my study.
As I passed the library, I saw a light flickering inside.
Sitting on the floor near a mahogany bookshelf, surrounded by buckets, rags, and bottles of wood polish, was Emma. She was leaning her head back against the heavy books, her eyes closed, a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich sitting on a paper napkin beside her.
She looked small. She looked fragile. Yet she was the only clean, pure thing inside this dark fortress of blood and iron.
I wheeled into the library doorway. The hum of my chair’s motor caused her to snap awake instantly.
She blinked, wiping her eyes, and looked up at me. Then her gaze dropped to my coat.
She froze.
A tiny smear of Sal Moretti’s blood had splattered across the hem of my dark cashmere coat during the encounter. It was subtle, but to someone who spent her life scrubbing stains, it stood out like a flares in the night.
She didn't scream. She didn't shrink back. She slowly stood up, wiped her hands on her apron, and walked straight over to me.
She reached out, her cool fingers brushing lightly against the wool of my lapel, looking into my eyes with an unreadable expression.
"You've been out," she said softly.
"I had business," I replied, my voice raspy with exhaustion.
"You're bleeding," she noted.
"It isn't mine."
Emma looked at the blood spot for three seconds, then turned toward her cleaning bucket, pulled out a clean, damp microfiber cloth, and knelt right in front of my chair.
Slowly, carefully, she began dabbing at the fabric, lifting the stain before it could set into the cashmere.
"You look like hell, Danny," she murmured, her head bowed as she worked on my coat. "Your hands are shaking."
"Nerve damage," I lied.
"No," she said, looking up, her deep brown eyes searching my face with startling, unyielding clarity. "It's not nerve damage. You're terrified that if you stop being a monster for even ten minutes, somebody's going to come in here and finish what they started two years ago."
I stared down at her, my heart hammering against my ribs with a strange, dizzying force that had nothing to do with Sal Moretti or the Chicago underground.
"Who taught you to talk like that to people who pay your salary?" I asked softly.
May you like
Emma offered a small, bitter smile, her thumbs gently smoothing the clean wool of my lapel.
"My mother," she whispered. "Before she forgot who I was, she told me that the scariest men in the world are just scared little boys who built bigger walls. Now hold still. I'm taking this coat to the laundry before it ruins."
