Chapter 8 - The Western Yard
The Friday night air in the Cicero rail yard smelled of diesel oil, wet rust, and the metallic tang of old turnstiles. The sky was black, the stars completely wiped out by the orange glow of the city’s industrial perimeter.
Vasquez stood between two rusted freight cars, his heavy wool coat open to reveal a silver-plated submachine gun slung over his shoulder. He was fifty, fat, with grease-stained fingers and eyes that moved with the rapid, frantic energy of a rat caught in a corner.
"Where are the trucks?" he shouted at his lead driver, a man with a scarred face named Santos. "The train’s been on the siding for twenty minutes! If the yard master calls the transit cops—"
"The yard master won't call nobody, Vasquez," a voice said from the dark.
The voice didn't come from the entrance; it came from the top of the freight car above them.
Marco Duca stepped into the beam of the yard’s halogen spotlight. He was dressed in full tactical black, a heavy combat knife buckled to his chest, a black assault rifle held loosely in his right hand. Behind him, from the shadows of twelve different rail cars, thirty men from the Duca old-guard stepped into the light, their weapons already raised, their movements silent and coordinated.
Vasquez backed up until his spine hit the rusted steel of the train. "Duca. You’re supposed to be in Lake Forest playing nurse to that bitch."
Marco didn't shout. He didn't order his men to fire. He simply jumped down from the top of the car, his boots landing on the gravel with a heavy, solid thud that made Vasquez jump. He walked forward until the barrel of his rifle was touching the center of Vasquez’s chest.
"The bitch you’re talking about is my mother, Hector," Marco said, his voice dropping into that cold, absolute silence that meant the end of a line. "And the girl who took your bullets is currently learning how to walk again in my house."
"It was business, Marco!" Vasquez gasped, his hands raising automatically, his silver weapon slipping from his shoulder to hit the gravel. "The commission agreed! The territory was supposed to be split! Your father’s dead—the old rules don't count no more!"
"The old rules don't count," Marco agreed, his eyes reflecting the harsh orange light of the yard. "But my rules do. And my first rule is very simple."
He pulled the trigger once.
The sound of the single shot echoed through the empty rail yard, scattering a flock of crows from the high telephone wires. Vasquez crumpled onto the gravel, his hands clutching his chest, his eyes rolling back as the dark stain expanded across his wool coat.
Marco turned his back on the body before it had even stopped moving. "Caruso. Clear the cars. Take the weight to the South Side warehouse. If any of his drivers have a problem with the new management, show them the floor."
As he walked back toward his Escalade, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, his fingers quick as he swiped the screen.
It was a video message from Dr. Vance.
The video was short, shot on a cell phone camera under the bright lights of the Lake Forest recovery wing. In the center of the frame, Lena was standing between two parallel bars. Her hands were gripping the metal, her knuckles white with effort, her face pale and sweat-streaked.
Then, with a slow, agonizingly deliberate movement, she lifted her right foot, carried it forward six inches, and set it down flat on the linoleum floor.
May you like
She looked up at the camera, a massive, triumphant smile breaking across her face, her eyes bright with tears. "I’m coming for those roses, Marco," she whispered.
Marco stopped in the middle of the gravel yard, his men moving past him like ghosts in the dark, and for the first time in fifteen years, a genuine, unforced smile broke across his hard face, his chest rising with a long, clean breath of the midnight air.
