Chapter 2 - Bloodlines and Bullet Holes
The dummy motorcade was a trick my security director, Leo, had instituted five years ago. Three identical black armored sedans entered my estate grounds every night, with my personal vehicle changing position randomly. Tonight, the lead car carried only two of my top bodyguards.
The moment the front heavy mahogany doors downstairs rattled from the entry of my security team, gunfire erupted in the grand foyer below.
Suppressed pops echoed up through the floorboards, followed by the heavy thuds of falling bodies and shouting.
"Now," Elena hissed.
She pushed the closet door open silently. In one fluid motion, she raised her weapon and fired twice through the dim light of my bedroom. The two suppressed rounds struck Marcus’s remaining bodyguard in the neck and chest before he could raise his rifle. The man collapsed onto the Persian rug without making a sound.
Marcus spun around, his eyes widening in pure horror as he saw me step out of the walk-in closet, flanked by the woman who had spent three years scrubbing his coffee cups.
"Uncle... Vincent?" Marcus stammered, raising his pistol with trembling hands. "How—"
"Lower the weapon, Marcus," I said, my voice quiet, steady, and devoid of any warmth. I didn't reach for a gun; I simply walked toward him, my hands in my suit pockets, stepping over the body of his fallen enforcer. "You were always a terrible judge of security protocols. I taught you how to read a room, but I never taught you how to read a house."
Marcus’s face contorted into a mask of pure rage, tears of frustration glistening in his eyes. "You killed my father! You took his seat, his money, his legacy, and you treated me like a charity case for twenty years!"
"Your father was my soul, Marcus," I said, stopping three feet from the barrel of his gun. I didn't flinch. "I spent twenty years tearing this city apart to find the men who took him from us. If you think I touched Thomas, you are a bigger fool than the Morettis who fed you those lies."
"Lies?!" Marcus screamed, his finger tightening on the trigger. "I have the tape! I have the recordings from the night he died!"
Before Marcus could pull the trigger, Elena moved like a shadow. She stepped inside his guard, her arm sweeping upward to deflect his weapon toward the ceiling. A loud thump echoed as a shot tore into the crown molding. She drove her elbow into Marcus’s solar plexus, sweeping his leg out from beneath him.
Marcus slammed hard onto the floor, his gun skittering across the polished hardwood.
Elena held her weapon pressed directly against his forehead, her eye steady on the front sight. "Give the order, Mr. Carter. One round and the traitor is gone."
Marcus looked up at me from the floor, gasping for air, his eyes filled with defiance.
I looked down at my brother’s only son. My heart felt like it was being carved out with a rusty blade, but the instinct for survival kept my expression as hard as granite.
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"We don't kill him here," I ordered quietly. "We take him to the Old District vault. It's time he sees the truth before I decide whether to put him in the ground."
Downstairs, the heavy footsteps of Moretti’s mercs echoed on the marble staircase. The house was compromised. My empire was under total siege, and the war for Chicago had just moved inside my own walls.
