Chapter 7 - Blood and Rain in the Windy City
Richard did not run toward the police.
Blind with psychotic rage, he broke through the service entrance of the Palmer House, slipping into the cold alleyway before the waiting detectives could intercept him.
He was a cornered animal now. The money was gone. The penthouse was sealed. His reputation was ashes. In his twisted, narcissistic mind, Sophia was the root of all his suffering. If he could not possess her, if he could not break her, then no one else would ever touch her again.
He possessed one final leverage point.
Three hours after the gala, at 1:30 a.m., Adrian’s secure estate was quiet once again. Sophia was in the library, staring at the roaring fireplace, holding a cup of tea. Adrian stood by his mahogany desk, reviewing the final legal paperwork transferring Bennett & Vance’s remaining assets into a newly established trust fund in Sophia’s name.
Suddenly, Sophia’s burner phone vibrated violently against the marble desk.
It was an unknown number.
Sophia’s heart seized. She looked at Adrian, who nodded silently, stepping beside her and pressing the speakerphone button.
“Answer it,” Adrian whispered.
Sophia answered, her hand trembling. “Hello?”
“Sophia, my darling,” Richard’s voice crackled through the speaker, raspy, manic, and slurred with whiskey and adrenaline.
“Richard. Turn yourself in,” Sophia said, trying to steady her breathing.
A chilling, raspy laugh came through the line. “Turn myself in? For what? To rot in a cell while you sleep in Adrian Cole’s bed and spend my family’s fortune? No, no, no. That’s not how our marriage vows work. ‘Till death do us part,’ remember?”
Then, another voice whimpered over the receiver—muffled, frail, and sobbing.
“Sophia? Baby? Where are you? A man broke into the apartment...”
Sophia felt the blood drain from her face. Her knees gave out, and Adrian caught her instantly by the waist, holding her upright.
“Mom!” Sophia screamed into the phone. “Richard, don't you touch her! She’s seventy years old, she has a heart condition! Leave her alone!”
“Your mother is currently sitting in a chair at the old Bennett Shipping warehouse on Pier 42,” Richard whispered, his voice turning lethally cold. “You remember Pier 42, don't you? Where my grandfather used to dock his yachts. The storm is picking up, Sophia. The river is very high, and the locks are opening.”
“Richard, please—”
“Come alone,” Richard snarled. “You have thirty minutes. If I see a single flashing light, if I see Adrian Cole or any of his mafia filth, I will push your mother’s wheelchair into sixty feet of freezing water, and then I will wait for you with a flare gun. Thirty minutes, Sophia. Come say goodbye to your family.”
The line went dead.
Sophia collapsed against Adrian’s chest, sobbing hysterically, clutching his lapels. “My mother... he has my mother, Adrian! He’s going to kill her! I have to go, I have to give myself up—”
Adrian grabbed her shoulders, his grip firm, steady, anchoring her in the midst of the terror.
“Sophia! Look at me!” he commanded.
Her tear-streaked eyes met his slate-gray gaze.
“Your mother is not going to die tonight,” Adrian said, each word deliberate and calm. “And you are never going to be in that man’s power ever again.”
“He said no police! He said if he sees you—”
“Richard thinks like an amateur,” Adrian said, pulling a custom black semi-automatic pistol from his desk drawer and chambering a round with a smooth, deadly *clack*. “He thinks in terms of street corners and front doors. Pier 42 is an industrial terminal. And my family has controlled every inlet, sewer line, and drainage dock along that river for forty years.”
Adrian pulled a communication earpiece from his pocket and pressed it into Sophia’s hand.
“You will go to Pier 42 in my armored town car,” Adrian said, his eyes burning with an icy, lethal fire. “You will walk through the main entrance. You will keep his eyes on you for three minutes. And while he is gloating about his little trap... I will be coming from behind him through the dark.”
He reached out, his thumb gently wiping away a stray tear from her cheek.
“Do you trust me, Sophia?”
Sophia looked at the man who had torn down a financial empire to protect her, who had treated her broken body with reverence, and who had given her back her soul.
May you like
“With my life,” she whispered.
***
