Chapter 8 - The Safehouse
The safehouse was located beneath an unassuming brick warehouse in the industrial shipping yards of South Chicago.
It was a high-tech fortress of concrete, steel monitors, and secured server racks. While a private medic stitched my shoulder wound on a leather examination couch, Vincent stood near the main control console, barking orders into a satellite phone.
“Clean up the Plaza mess,” Vincent ordered his chief capos. “Pay off the night desk at the precinct, ensure the security footage is overwritten, and put a double guard on our perimeter across the North Side. Marcus is dead, but his crew answers to someone higher up.”
He hung up the phone, tossed it onto the metal desk, and walked over to where I sat.
The medic finished bandaging my shoulder, packed his kit, and silently exited the room, sliding the heavy steel door shut behind him.
The room fell quiet. Just the hum of the cooling fans on the server racks.
I sat up, pulling my black trench coat tighter over my bandaged shoulder. The midnight-blue silk dress was ruined, stained with blood and dust from the Plaza ballroom.
Vincent walked over, set a cup of hot black coffee on the table beside me, and remained standing two feet away, keeping his distance as if afraid I would shatter.
“You should have let me die back there,” I said quietly, staring into the dark coffee.
“That’s the one thing I could never do, Mave,” Vincent replied, his voice deep and steady.
I looked up, meeting his amber eyes. “Why? Because my father asked you to? Because you felt obligated to the daughter of your dead partner?”
Vincent pulled a wooden chair over, sat down facing me, and rested his forearms on his knees.
“The night of the fire,” Vincent began, his voice dropping into a quiet, painful memory, “Arthur and I didn't go to the warehouse to commit fraud. We went because we discovered that a city councilman and a rival syndicate boss were using our shipping containers to run weapons through the port. We tried to pull out.”
He looked up, locking his gaze onto mine.
“They set the fire to silence us both. I managed to get out through the lower drainage tunnels, but the blast dropped the main beam before Arthur could follow. I spent three days digging through the ash looking for him. But he wasn't there. He had already slipped out through the back emergency exit, knowing they would hunt him down.”
“He went into hiding,” I whispered.
“He went into hiding to keep you safe,” Vincent said. “He left you with a foster family because he knew my name was already marked. But before he disappeared completely, he gave me the ledger and made me swear one oath: ‘If I don't come back, find my daughter when she’s old enough, keep her safe, and give her the tools to finish what I started.’”
I stared at him, the heavy truth finally settling into place like the pieces of a complex puzzle.
All those years. All those spreadsheets, all those security protocols, all those late nights in the office. I hadn't just been his secretary. I had been training for a war I didn't even know I was fighting.
“And the flash drive?” I asked, holding up the small silver device.
“That contains the digital signatures of every politician, judge, and syndicate boss who profited from your father’s ruin,” Vincent said, standing up and holding out his hand. “With that drive, we don't just destroy their business. We take back the city.”
I looked at his hand—large, calloused, scarred from a life of violence, yet steady as a rock.
Three years ago, I had made a rule never to enter Vincent Costa’s world.
May you like
Tonight, I realized I had never been outside of it.
I placed my hand in his.
