Chapter 6 - The Shadows Gather
Word of Raymond's sudden disappearance spilled through the Chicago Underworld like quicksilver.
In a smoke-filled private club on the South Side, three men sat in a high-backed booth. These were not street-level enforcers; these were the heads of the Detroit Syndicate—men who had been slowly buying up Julian Hart’s shipping routes for eighteen months, preparing to launch a full-scale war to destroy his empire.
At the center of the booth sat Viktor Vance—a ruthless, scarred veteran of the Eastern European mob who cared nothing for rules, children, or honor.
"Raymond didn't board his plane," Viktor said, his heavy voice rasping through a thick cigar cloud. "Hart found him out. He seized the offshore accounts before we could drain them."
"How?" asked one of his lieutenants, a pale man named Kovak. "Raymond swore Hart had no idea. He said he cleared the books himself."
"It doesn't matter how," Viktor snarled, smashing his cigar into an ash tray. "What matters is Hart is getting smarter. He's cutting off our roots before we can choke him out. We need to strike his house directly. Cut the head off the snake."
"The Hart estate is a fortress," Kovak warned. "He has twenty armed guards, motion sensors, and that wild German Shepherd he bought from the pit ring last month."
Viktor smiled—a ugly, yellow-toothed grin. "Every fortress has a crack in the wall. Hart brought two new servants into his house three weeks ago. A mechanic boy and his blind sister."
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Viktor leaned forward, dropping a thick file onto the table. It contained grainy photographs of Leo working in the lower garage and Maisie walking through the estate grounds with Cyrus.
"The boy works in the lower garage every night alone," Viktor whispered softly. "He loves that little girl more than his own life. We get the boy, we get the codes to the security gate. We get inside the house, and Hart dies in his bed."
