Chapter 3 - The First Protocol of Protection
By three in the morning, Dr. Vance had completed his examination, pronounced Sophia exhausted but remarkably healthy, and administered a mild pediatric sedative to clear the lingering effects of the four-day bus ride. The child was now asleep in the guest room—a space that had previously been used to store extra leather office chairs and boxes of legal archives.
Dominic sat at his desk in the main office, the Colt .45 disassembled into seven clean pieces on the green blotter before him. Felix stood across from him, holding a tablet that displayed the traffic cam footage from the Greyhound station on Harrison Street.
“The bus driver is clean, boss,” Felix reported. “An old guy named Miller. Thirty years on the route. He thought he was doing a favor for a dying woman who told him the girl’s father was a wealthy real estate developer who didn't know she existed. He didn't see anyone following her in San Diego, and he didn't notice any unusual vehicles at the rest stops in Arizona or Missouri.”
“And the mother?” Dominic asked, his fingers mechanically cleaning the firing pin with a silk cloth.
“Elena Vasquez lived under her own name in a small cottage near the cliffs,” Felix said, his voice dropping into a softer, more respectful tone. “She worked as a freelance landscape architect. Paid her taxes, kept her nose clean. But six months ago, after her diagnosis, someone filed an inquiry into her banking records through a shell company based out of Cicero.”
Dominic’s hand stopped moving. The cloth remained wrapped around the steel pin. “Cicero. The Marcone family.”
“Specifically, Leo Marcone,” Felix added. “He’s been trying to find out where you spent those eight months back in 2020 when you disappeared from the Chicago grid. He thought you were setting up an alternative supply line through the West Coast ports. It looks like his people found Elena instead.”
Dominic slowly reassembled the pistol. The pieces slid back into place with a series of sharp, metallic clicks that sounded like small bone snaps in the quiet office. He slammed the magazine home with the heel of his palm.
“Leo thinks he has a lever,” Dominic said, his eyes reflecting the cold blue light of the city below. “He thinks because Elena is dead, he can use the girl to force me to give up the North Side docks.”
“He doesn't know she’s here yet,” Felix pointed out. “Our security at the tower is airtight. The guards who saw her tonight are on the personal payroll. They don't talk to the street.”
“They don't have to talk, Felix. Leo has people inside the municipal registry. The second that birth certificate was uploaded to the state database in California, a flag went up. It’s only a matter of days before he connects the dots.”
Dominic stood up, walked back to the glass, and looked toward the North Side where the lights of Marcone’s territory flickered like a rash against the dark lake. For fifteen years, he had operated under the assumption that his life was a closed circle. He had no vulnerabilities because he had no attachments. If a man burned his house down, he would simply buy another one. If a man shot his dog, he would buy a bigger weapon.
But now, there was a five-year-old girl sleeping forty feet away who wore green dinosaurs and thought his name belonged on her official ledger.
“Increase the guard at the tower to three shifts,” Dominic ordered. “Nobody enters the residential levels without my personal biometric scan. Not even the maintenance crews. And tell Hawk to find out which school on the Gold Coast has the highest security perimeter. She needs to be registered under an alias by Monday.”
May you like
“An alias, sir?” Felix asked, surprised. “But she already told the front desk her name is Reyes.”
“Then change the front desk,” Dominic snapped. “If anyone asks, she’s my niece from New York. Her parents died in an accident. If Leo Marcone hears the word daughter, he’ll bring fifty men across the river before the week is out.”
