Chapter 5 - The Cicero Inquiry
The warning Dominic had anticipated arrived on Thursday evening, in the form of a small, silver-plated cigarette case left on the front seat of Felix’s personal car while it was parked inside the secure garage at the Chicago Athletic Association.
Inside the case was a single piece of paper with an address in Cicero and a time: 10:00 PM. Friday. The Red Room.
Dominic sat in his office, turning the silver case over in his hands. It was an old-school move—the kind Leo Marcone’s father used to make when he wanted to show that his people could reach into your pockets whenever they chose.
“It’s a trap, boss,” Hawk said, standing by the desk with a map of the Cicero industrial district open on his tablet. “The Red Room is an old meatpacking plant that Marcone converted into a private club. It only has two entrances, both of them monitored by his heavy soldiers. If you go in there with less than twenty men, you’re putting your head in the lion’s mouth.”
“Leo doesn't want to kill me, Hawk,” Dominic said, his voice steady as he set the case down. “If he wanted to kill me, he would have put a bomb under Felix’s chassis. He wants to talk. He wants to see if the rumor from California has a face.”
“We could move the girl to the safehouse in Wisconsin,” Felix suggested, his face drawn with worry. “The estate in Door County has a concrete bunker and an independent satellite link. We can keep her there until we clear the Cicero situation.”
Dominic looked toward the door of the office. Through the glass, he could see into the living room, where Sophia had set up a large, unstable fort made from four leather cushions and three of his cashmere throws. She was currently inside the fort, reading a picture book about dinosaurs to her stuffed rabbit by the light of a small penlight she had stolen from his desk.
If he sent her to Wisconsin, she would be safe. But she would also be alone. She would be back in the shadows, waiting for a man who might not come back from a meeting in Cicero.
“No,” Dominic said, standing up and pulling his coat over his shoulders. “We don't run. The second Leo sees me move her, he knows he has a target. We keep her here. We keep the routine exactly as it is. Friday morning, she goes to school. Friday night, I go to Cicero.”
He walked out of the office and stood beside the cushion fort. He tapped his foot against the leather base. “Sophia.”
The penlight went out instantly. A small, dark eye appeared through the crack between two cushions. “I’m not here. I’m a triceratops.”
“The triceratops needs to clear the sofa by nine o'clock,” Dominic said. “The cleaning crew comes at dawn.”
“The cleaning crew doesn't like dinosaurs,” Sophia’s small voice came from the dark interior. “They always put my things in the wrong boxes. Mama said you have to keep your bones where you can find them.”
Dominic reached down, pulled back one of the cashmere throws, and looked at her. She was curled up on her side, her small thumb near her mouth, her dark curls flattened against the leather. She looked incredibly small against the massive expanse of his apartment—a tiny, fragile piece of life that had somehow taken root in the concrete of his heart.
“I will be late tomorrow night,” he told her.
May you like
Sophia looked up, her green-flecked eyes steady in the faint light. “Are you going to see the bad men?”
Dominic didn't answer immediately. He reached out, his long, scarred index finger gently touching the top of her little nose—the only gesture of affection he could bring himself to make. “I’m going to make sure the bad men stay in Cicero.”
