Chapter 4 - The Night Chicago Burned
Harper ran.
Gunshots cracked through the darkness behind her, sharp and terrifying. She did not look back. Dust rose from the floor beneath her heels as she sprinted through the abandoned hallway.
“Enzo!” she shouted into the wire.
Static answered.
A hand grabbed her arm.
Harper screamed and fought until she saw Dominic’s face in the dim emergency light.
“It is me.”
He pulled her against the wall, shielding her with his body as more gunfire echoed from another floor.
“Where is Braden?” she asked.
“Gone.”
“Is he alive?”
“I do not know.”
Dominic’s expression told her he feared the answer.
They escaped through a side stairwell and reached the waiting SUVs. The convoy sped away before Harper could catch her breath.
Inside the vehicle, Dominic’s knuckles were streaked with blood.
“You are hurt,” Harper said.
“It is not mine.”
The answer should have frightened her.
Instead, all she could feel was the terror of nearly losing him.
“Victor knew we would come,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“There is someone feeding him information.”
Dominic looked at her.
“There has been for a long time.”
Back at the mansion, Dominic gathered his inner circle. Enzo, his sister Sofia, and several trusted men stood around a long table covered with maps and phones.
Harper remained at the edge of the room until Sofia approached her.
Sofia Russo was nothing like Dominic. She had warm brown eyes, a gentle voice, and a sadness that seemed permanently woven into her expression.
“You should leave Chicago,” Sofia said.
Harper looked at her. “Can I?”
Sofia hesitated.
“That is not what I asked.”
Harper understood.
“No,” Sofia admitted. “Not until Victor is stopped.”
The truth hurt, but Harper appreciated it more than another lie.
She returned to the financial records and searched for the one thing Victor would protect at all costs. Hours passed. Then she found it.
A private ledger hidden inside an insurance company’s archived files.
The ledger listed payments to city officials, police officers, shipping managers, and even one of Dominic’s own advisers.
The traitor was Marco Bellini.
Marco had been Dominic’s legal adviser for more than a decade.
When Harper showed Dominic the evidence, he went completely still.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Marco had access to every meeting, every file, every security plan. He had known where Harper would be. He had known about the care facility. He had known the abandoned building meeting.
Dominic closed his eyes for one brief second.
“Marco helped raise me after my father died,” he said.
Harper touched his hand.
“You do not have to face him alone.”
Dominic looked at their joined hands.
“You should not be here.”
“But I am.”
That night, Marco contacted Dominic.
He demanded the ledger in exchange for Harper.
Dominic’s face turned cold.
“He thinks he can trade your life like currency.”
“What is the plan?” Harper asked.
“You stay here.”
“No.”
“Harper.”
“You need the ledger, and I am the only person who understands the coded accounts well enough to prove it is real.”
Dominic stepped toward her, anger and fear colliding in his expression.
“I will not use you as bait.”
“You did not. Victor did. But I can help end this.”
For a long time, neither spoke.
Finally, Dominic nodded.
The exchange was arranged at the old Navy Pier warehouse district.
Harper wore a hidden tracker. Enzo positioned men around the building. Dominic arrived with the ledger inside a metal case.
Marco stood in the center of the warehouse with Victor D’Angelo.
Victor was older than Harper expected. Silver-haired, elegant, and smiling like a man attending a dinner party instead of a hostage exchange.
“Miss Hayes,” Victor said. “You caused quite a lot of trouble for an auditor.”
“I am good at finding things that do not belong,” Harper replied.
Victor laughed.
Dominic’s gaze never left him.
“Let her go,” Dominic said.
Marco stepped forward.
“You always believed loyalty was fear, Dominic. That was your father’s mistake too.”
“No,” Dominic said. “My father believed fear was loyalty. I learned the difference.”
The deal collapsed when Victor reached for his gun.
Everything happened at once.
Enzo’s men moved. Dominic shoved Harper behind a concrete pillar. Gunfire erupted across the warehouse. Marco tried to escape through a side door, but Harper saw something nobody else did.
He had dropped a small flash drive.
She grabbed it.
Victor’s men rushed toward her.
Dominic reached her first.
He pulled her into his arms and covered her head as glass shattered nearby.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded.
“No.”
His face was inches from hers.
For one heartbeat, the warehouse, the danger, and the noise disappeared.
Then Dominic kissed her.
This time, Harper kissed him back because she wanted to.
Not because she was afraid.
Not because she needed a shield.
When they pulled apart, Dominic rested his forehead against hers.
“If we get out of here,” he said, “I am taking you somewhere far away from all of this.”
Harper gave him a shaky smile.
“You will have to ask me first.”
For the first time, Dominic smiled.
A real one.
Then Enzo shouted, “Boss! Victor is heading for the docks!”
May you like
Dominic looked toward the open warehouse door.
The final fight had begun.
