Chapter 4 - The Ambush on North Avenue
The Maybach tore down the rain-slicked concrete of the Kennedy Expressway at ninety miles an hour, its heavy twelve-cylinder engine roaring like an iron furnace.
Inside the passenger compartment, the atmosphere had shifted from romantic revelation to the pressurized, lethal stillness of a tactical strike. Vincent sat in the rear seat, his black tuxedo jacket discarded, wearing a Kevlar tactical vest over his white dress shirt, racking the slide of a customized SIG Sauer P226 with cold, mechanical efficiency.
Beside him sat Victor Vance, operating an encrypted tactical monitor linked to the Chicago Police Department’s municipal traffic network.
I sat between them, my black gown bunched around my knees, holding my tablet, tracking the GPS transponder embedded in the signet ring Evan had left behind in the study—a ring that Victor had secretly linked to our private satellite network months earlier.
"They aren't taking him to New York, Vincent," I said, my fingers flying across the digital map, zooming in on an industrial cluster along the North Branch of the Chicago River. "They turned off the expressway onto Elston Avenue. They're heading toward the abandoned Finkl Steel plant."
"Finkl Steel," Vincent muttered, his jaw setting into iron. "Sterling’s holding company bought that parcel through a shell corporation last month. They have a deep-water barge moored on the river. If they put Evan on that water, they can move him into international shipping waters before dawn."
"Why take him?" I asked, looking up at Vincent’s profile. "If Sterling wanted the Calumet rail lines, he knows Evan doesn't hold the signatory rights."
"Sterling doesn't want the rail lines anymore, Claire," Vincent answered, his gray eyes locking onto mine with an unvarnished, terrifying clarity.
"Sterling wants me to abdicate.
He knows that under the Commission's charter, if a Don's only heir is held as a hostage in a jurisdictional dispute, the Don must either surrender his territory or watch his bloodline be extinguished.
He thinks I will trade the city to save my son."
"Will you?" I whispered.
Vincent looked at the weapon in his hands, then turned his gaze to the rain streaking across the tinted glass.
"I will give Dominic Sterling exactly what he asked for, Claire," Vincent said softly, his voice dropping into that subterranean frequency that made Victor Vance check his magazines.
"I will give him an execution."
The Maybach screeched to a halt two blocks from the rusted corrugated-metal gates of the abandoned steel plant.
The rain had intensified into a blinding deluge, turning the industrial gravel into a sea of black mud. Steam rose from the river slipway, where an eighty-foot commercial tugboat was idling, its twin diesel engines churning the dark water into white foam.
Through the broken windows of the primary rolling mill, the flickering yellow glare of halogen work lights illuminated four black Suburbans parked in a defensive semi-circle.
Tied to a heavy steel I-beam in the center of the concrete floor was Evan.
His tuxedo was torn, his face battered and bleeding, his head hanging low as two men in tactical gear stood over him with automatic shotguns.
Standing twenty feet away, smoking an unlit cigar, was Dominic Sterling.
Vincent unlatched the heavy armored door of the Maybach.
"Stay in the car with Victor, Claire," Vincent commanded, his voice flat, absolute, and devoid of fear.
"No," I said, grabbing his forearm, my fingers digging into the Kevlar of his vest. "Sterling expects you to arrive with a security detail, Vincent. He expects a firefight. If you walk in there alone with a gun, he shoots Evan before you clear the doorway."
Vincent stared at me, his brow furrowing. "What are you suggesting?"
I held up my tablet, showing him the municipal zoning overlay I had pulled from the city’s database forty seconds earlier.
"The Finkl plant sits on the old municipal gas main," I said, my voice steady, diagnostic, and sharp as a scalpel.
"The emergency shut-off valve is located in the service vault thirty yards from the river.
If Victor cuts the primary pressure line...
the entire facility fills with volatile natural gas in sixty seconds.
You don't need to shoot forty men, Vincent.
May you like
You just need to show Dominic Sterling...
that you're willing to strike a match."
