Chapter 3 - The Cicero Perimeter
The ride down to the basement garage was executed in absolute silence. Roman carried Lily himself, his massive arms cradling her with a precision that ensured her sleep remained undisturbed. I followed behind, clutching her cheap diaper bag like a shield, acutely aware of the four heavily armed guards who had materialized in the hallway the moment we stepped out of the office.
The vehicle waiting for us wasn't the luxury Mercedes sedan Roman usually used for public appearances. It was a matte-black, fully armored Suburban with reinforced glass and run-flat tires. Silvano, a scarred veteran of the Callahan syndicate whose loyalty dated back to Roman’s father, held the door open without saying a word. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the toddler in Roman’s arms, but he asked no questions.
"Get us to the Cicero depot, Silvano," Roman ordered as he buckled Lily into a pristine, high-end car seat that had mysteriously appeared in the back row within minutes of his call. "Take the industrial routes. Avoid the cameras on I-55."
"Understood, boss," Silvano muttered, shifting the heavy vehicle into gear.
As the Suburban navigated the gray, slush-covered streets of Chicago's industrial underbelly, the reality of my situation began to sink in. I was an administrative clerk. I spent my days entering data into spreadsheets for a logistics company that I now realized was a front for one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country. And the man who had occupied my thoughts, the man whose absence had left a hollow ache in my chest for nearly two years, was the brother of the city's undisputed underworld king.
"He loved old country music," I said suddenly, the words breaking the heavy silence of the cabin.
Roman turned his head to look at me, his dark eyes unreadable.
"He used to whistle that old Johnny Cash song while he fried eggs on Sunday mornings," I continued, my voice shaking but determined. "He told me his grandfather taught it to him on a porch in Kentucky."
A faint, bittersweet shadow crossed Roman’s face. "Our grandfather didn't have a porch in Kentucky. He had a farmhouse in the hills outside of Louisville where he kept the family’s whiskey distributors hidden during the late seventies. Caleb spent three summers down there learning how to balance books that the IRS could never read."
"Why did he hide from you, Roman?" I asked, looking directly into the eyes of the man the entire city feared. "If you're as powerful as everyone says you are, why didn't he just come to you for help?"
Roman looked out the window as we passed a row of rusted warehouses. "Because seventeen months ago, I wasn't the boss. My father, Silas Callahan, was still alive. And Silas didn't believe in weaknesses. To my father, a woman from outside the organization with no political capital or family connections wasn't a partner for a Callahan—she was a liability. A target to be leveraged."
My blood ran cold. "Caleb was protecting us from your father?"
"Silas wanted Caleb to marry the daughter of the Moretti capo in New York to cement a shipping alliance," Roman explained, his jaw tight. "Caleb refused. A week later, the four million dollars went missing from the transit accounts, and Caleb vanished. I thought he had taken the money and run to Europe to escape the marriage. I spent a year tracking his shadow through bank accounts in Zurich and London."
He turned back to me, his gaze dropping to Lily, who was now awake, blinking lazily at the dark interior of the car.
"But he didn't go to Europe," Roman whispered, his fingers clenching into a fist against his knee. "He stayed right here in the mud, working for minimum wage, just to be near enough to watch you grow."
The Suburban slowed down, turning into a vast, enclosed rail yard surrounded by double-layered chain-link fences topped with razor wire. Rusted shipping containers were stacked three high, creating a labyrinth of metal and shadow. This was the Cicero depot—the beating heart of the Callahan organization’s smuggling operations.
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"We're here, boss," Silvano announced, checking his mirrors. "The perimeter is clear, but Dominic’s crew is inside the main office."
Roman’s expression transformed instantly into the mask of the mafia don. "Good. Let's see what my father's old underboss remembers about the week my brother disappeared."
