Chapter 5 - The Reckoning at the Gate
The storm that hit Chicago on Friday afternoon was the worst of the season. The sky turned a bruised, purple-black, and the waves of Lake Michigan slammed against the stone retaining walls of the estate with a sound like thunder.
At four o'clock, a rusted black Cadillac Escalade pulled up to the main iron gates of the Vale mansion. Inside the vehicle sat Marcus Vance and three of his heavy-set collectors, their coats pulled up against the rain. Vance was a greasy man in his late forties, his fingers covered in cheap gold rings, a cigar smoldering between his teeth.
"Tell Emma Carter to get her fat ass down here," Vance shouted into the intercom system at the gate. "She's three days late on the interest, and I ain't leaving without the cash or her signature on the car title."
The intercom didn't answer with a security guard's voice. Instead, the massive iron gates began to swing open slowly, grinding against the wet pavement.
Vance smirked, putting the vehicle in drive. "See? She knows better than to play with me. Drive up."
The Cadillac rolled up the long, winding driveway, stopping in front of the grand white limestone entrance. The double oak doors pushed open, but it wasn't Emma who walked out into the pouring rain.
It was Dominic Vale.
He didn't carry an umbrella. He wore a long, black wool trench coat that swept against his boots, his hair slicked back by the rain, his face completely expressionless. Behind him stood Mason Reed and six heavily armed security operators, their hands resting on their submachine guns.
Vance’s smirk vanished. The cigar slipped from his mouth, hitting the leather seat of his car. He scrambled to open his door, his knees shaking so hard he nearly fell onto the wet gravel. "M-Mr. Vale... I didn't know... I mean, I was just here for a personal matter. One of your maids—"
"Emma Carter is no longer a maid, Marcus," Dominic said, his voice cutting through the sound of the wind like a razor blade. He walked down the stone steps, stopping a foot away from the trembling loan shark. "She is under the direct protection of the executive office of this family."
"I... I didn't know, sir! I swear!" Vance stammered, his face turning an asymmetric shade of gray. "She owed a debt... her father... her mother's hospital bills... I was just collecting what was legally mine—"
"Nothing in this city is legally yours unless I say it is," Dominic interrupted, stepping closer until his shadow completely enveloped the smaller man. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a thick, sealed manila envelope, slamming it against Vance’s chest. "Inside that envelope is the total principal amount Emma Carter's family ever borrowed from your organization, plus a standard ten percent interest. Not eighty. Ten."
Vance clutched the envelope like a lifeline. "Thank you, Mr. Vale... thank you—"
"I'm not finished," Dominic whispered, his gray eyes flashing with a lethal intensity that made Vance’s collectors inside the car freeze. "If I see your name on another financial ledger in this state, if I hear that you or your men have come within five miles of Emma Carter, her mother, or that diner on the South Side... I won't send my lawyers, Marcus. I'll send Mason. And you know what happens when Mason has to work in the rain."
Vance nodded frantically, his teeth chattering from pure terror. "Yes, sir. Clear. Completely clear. She doesn't owe a dime. We're gone."
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"Get off my property," Dominic said, turning his back on them.
As the Cadillac screeched down the driveway, reversing through the gates in a panic, Dominic looked up toward the third-floor windows of the mansion. Emma was standing there, her hand pressed against the glass, watching the man the city feared break her chains without asking for anything in return.
