Chapter 3 - THE COUNTDOWN CALL
Lorenzo did not say a word.
He pressed the phone flat against his ear.
Through the dirty glass of the driver's window fifty yards away, a man smiled.
Dante Moretti.
Victor’s youngest nephew.
A sociopath who wore tailored three-piece suits to torture sessions.
“You’re quiet today, Amelia,” Dante chuckled through the phone.
“Did the cold finally freeze your vocal cords?”
“Or did you realize that running only delays the inevitable?”
Dante tapped the steering wheel of the sedan.
“Victor wants you back in New York by midnight.”
“The iron is already hot for your other shoulder.”
Lorenzo inhaled slowly.
He kept Amelia shielded against his chest.
“Dante,” Lorenzo said.
The silence on the other end of the line was instantaneous.
Dante’s smile in the distant windshield vanished.
“Bianchi?” Dante’s voice lost all its playful arrogance.
“You shouldn't have come to Chicago, Dante,” Lorenzo said softly.
His voice was terrifyingly level.
“You brought an iron to my city.”
“You touched my wife.”
“She’s not your wife, Bianchi!” Dante snarled into the receiver.
“She left you at the altar!”
“She belongs to the Moretti family now!”
“Look behind you,” Lorenzo said.
Dante hesitated.
In the rearview mirror of the black sedan, two dark SUVs pulled up bumper-to-bumper.
Lorenzo’s enforcers.
Marco and Leo stepped out into the swirling snow.
Both men held silenced submachine guns beneath their heavy overcoats.
Dante slammed his foot on the accelerator.
The sedan's tires spun violently on the black ice.
Marco raised his weapon.
Thump-thump-thump.
The three rounds punched through the sedan’s rear tires, shredding the rubber into smoking ribbons.
The sedan swung sideways, smashing into an iron fire hydrant.
Steam hissed into the freezing air.
Dante kicked his door open, raising a chrome pistol.
Marco did not give him the chance to level the barrel.
Marco closed the distance in three long strides, his steel-toed boot striking Dante’s wrist.
The chrome gun went flying into a snowbank.
Marco shoved Dante face-first onto the frozen hood of his own car.
The metal groaned under the impact.
Lorenzo carried Amelia out of the dark alley into the street.
The snow swirled around them like powdered glass.
Amelia’s hands were knotted into Lorenzo’s shirt, clutching him with a strength born of pure panic.
“Mia,” she gasped against his neck.
“Lorenzo, Mia is in Evanston.”
“Victor’s men are parked outside her dorm.”
Lorenzo stopped beside the crushed sedan.
Marco held Dante pinned by the back of his neck.
Dante’s cheek was pressed against the freezing steel, his nose bleeding onto the emblem.
“Where is Mia?” Lorenzo asked.
He did not raise his voice.
He did not shout.
Dante laughed, coughing blood onto the windshield.
“Check your watch, Bianchi.”
“The afternoon shift ended twenty minutes ago.”
“My boys had orders to breach the dorm at five o'clock.”
Lorenzo checked his silver wristwatch.
The hands read 5:04 PM.
Lorenzo turned to Leo.
“Put Dante in the trunk.”
“Call the Evanston team.”
“Tell them to breach the student hall immediately.”
Leo drew his phone, his face pale under the streetlights.
He hit speed dial, put it to his ear, and waited.
One ring.
Two rings.
Three rings.
Leo lowered the phone slowly, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“Boss,” Leo whispered.
May you like
“The Evanston team isn't picking up.”
“The line is dead.”
