Chapter 7 - The Miami Connection
Before we could launch the assault, we needed leverage. Marcus was powerful, but he was also a coward who relied on alliances. The only way he could have orchestrated the hit in Miami and the breach in Chicago simultaneously was with outside funding.
Claire set up a secure laptop on the kitchen island, running a decryption algorithm she had salvaged from her military days. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, hacking into the offshore routing numbers associated with Marcus’s private accounts.
“Got him,” Claire announced after twenty minutes of furious typing. “Marcus didn't fund this coup himself. He took a ten-million-dollar advance from the Rossi syndicate in New York. Rossi wants the Chicago transit lines. Marcus promised to hand them over in exchange for the throne.”
“Rossi,” I spat the name like a curse. “That explains the professional breach team. Those weren't Chicago street thugs. Those were Rossi’s imported hitmen.”
“Which means Marcus is vulnerable,” Claire noted, turning the screen toward me. “Rossi’s men are mercenaries. They don't have loyalty to Marcus; they have loyalty to the paycheck. If we sever the financial head of the snake, the body will scatter.”
I looked at the blueprints of the South Side warehouse she had pulled up on the screen. It was a sprawling, multi-level facility bordering the Chicago River.
“Marcus will be in the top-floor executive suite holding court,” I pointed out. “The only way up is a reinforced freight elevator and two stairwells guarded by Rossi’s men.”
“We don't go up,” Claire said, her eyes flashing with tactical brilliance. “We bring the ceiling down.”
She outlined a plan that was as reckless as it was magnificent. We wouldn't fight our way through fifty men. We would use the warehouse’s own structural vulnerabilities against it.
I left Ava and Emma in the care of Harper, who was armed with a shotgun and given strict orders not to open the door for anyone but me or Claire. Leaving my children was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but looking into Claire’s eyes, I knew it was the only way to ensure they would ever have a future.
We dressed in black tactical gear, loading the stolen SUV with enough explosives and weaponry to arm a small militia.
As we drove through the dark, rain-swept streets toward the South Side, the tension in the car was palpable. I reached across the center console, taking Claire’s scarred hand in mine.
“When this is over,” I said, my voice cutting through the silence of the cabin. “When the dust settles. You aren't going back to cleaning floors.”
Claire squeezed my hand, a soft, genuine smile illuminating her face in the dashboard light. “I don't know, Elias. You still owe me my last paycheck.”
May you like
“I’m going to give you my whole world,” I promised.
And as the looming, dark silhouette of the warehouse appeared in the distance, I knew I was ready to burn the city down to keep that promise.
