Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Alley Floor
Sophie stood shaking inside the rear of the running Cadillac, her small hands clutching a pristine white cloth napkin Vincent had handed her from the restaurant table.
"It was Mr. Vane," Sophie gasped out, her small voice trembling against the leather seats as the big sedan tore through the rain-slicked streets toward the south side of Chicago. "He came to the laundry shop with two men in heavy coats. He told Mama that she owed rent for three months, but Mama paid it! I saw her give him the envelope on Friday!"
Vincent sat beside her, his tall, imposing frame perfectly still. In his lap, his hand was clenched into a fist so tight his knuckles were stark white.
"Vane," Vincent repeated, his voice dropping into an icy register that made his chief enforcer, Tony, glance nervously into the rearview mirror. "Marcus Vane. The loan shark operating out of the old slaughterhouse quarter."
"Yes," Sophie cried softly. "He told Mama that the interest went up. He said if she couldn't pay five thousand dollars tonight, he was taking the shop. When Mama tried to call the police, one of the men... he hit her with a iron pipe. Then they hit her again when she fell."
Tony’s jaw tightened in the driver’s seat. "Boss... Vane pays a protection cut to the Moretti family. He operates in the neutral zone, but he's under Don Moretti's banner."
"I don't care if he's under the Pope's banner," Vincent growled softly, reaching over to wipe a streak of dried blood off Sophie’s small cheek with his thumb. "No one beats an unarmed woman in front of her child in my city."
Three armored SUVs pulled up behind Vincent’s sedan as they turned off the boulevard into a dark, decaying industrial alleyway behind Martinez Family Cleaners.
The front glass of the laundry shop had been shattered into thousands of glistening pieces.
Vincent stepped out of the vehicle into the heavy rain, his long wool coat swinging around his ankles. Ten heavily armed enforcers in dark suits spilled out of the trailing SUVs, their submachine guns drawn, forming a silent perimeter around the building.
Vincent walked into the shattered shop.
The air inside smelled of hot steam, starch, and the heavy, metallic stench of fresh blood.
Lying behind the counter, half-covered by fallen clothes hangers, was Elena Martinez. Her hair was matted with blood, her breathing shallow and rattling, her skin cold to the touch. A rusted iron pipe lay on the linoleum floor beside her, dripping red.
Vincent knelt beside her immediately, placing two fingers against her neck. Her pulse was thready, hanging by a thread.
"Tony," Vincent ordered, his voice echoing in the ruined room like a crack of thunder. "Get Dr. Rossi here in three minutes. Tell him if she dies, I will pull his medical license and his teeth."
"Right away, Don Vincent!" Tony shouted, sprinting out to the street.
Vincent looked down at Elena’s pale face. In the dim fluorescent light of the broken ceiling fixtures, he saw the faint, striking resemblance between mother and daughter—the same soft jawline, the same resilience written across her features even in near-death.
He looked down at his own hands, covered in the fresh blood of a woman he had never met, and felt thirty years of icy, unyielding stone crack wide open.
"Hold on," Vincent whispered to the unconscious woman, taking her limp hand into his. "Your daughter found me. You're safe now."
Five minutes later, Dr. Rossi arrived with two private paramedics, stabilizing Elena with oxygen and IV fluids before lifting her onto a stretcher.
"She has severe cranial trauma and three broken ribs, Don Vincent," Dr. Rossi reported, his voice shaking as he wiped sweat from his brow. "She needs emergency surgery at St. Jude's Private Clinic. Another ten minutes without medical intervention, and her brain would have swelled beyond recovery."
Vincent stood up, turning to face his men. His eyes were no longer those of a calm businessman; they were the eyes of the ruthless predator who had conquered Chicago thirty years ago.
"Where is Marcus Vane right now?" Vincent asked quietly.
"He's at the Iron Horse Lounge down the block, Don Vincent," one of his lieutenants replied. "Celebrating with his men."
Vincent adjusted his gold cufflinks, his expression turning to absolute, lethal steel.
"Bring the girl to the estate," Vincent commanded gently to his personal driver. "Tell the housekeeper to make her hot chocolate and give her a warm bed."
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He turned back to his men, pulling a heavy black handgun from beneath his tailored jacket.
"The rest of you... follow me."
