Chapter 4 - The Shadow on Western Avenue
At 2:00 PM the following afternoon, a rainstorm swept over the city of Chicago, graying out the sky and turning the streetlights of Western Avenue into blurred smudges of yellow and red.
Inside a dingy, neon-lit storefront labeled Apex Financial Services, Marcus Kane sat behind a scuffed metal desk, counting a stack of hundred-dollar bills with a wet thumb. A cigarette dangled from his cracked lip, ash dropping onto a faded linoleum floor covered in old takeout containers.
The front door chimed as it swung open.
Marcus didn't look up. "We're closed. Come back at three."
"I don't think you're closed, Marcus," a voice answered.
It wasn't a customer’s voice. It wasn't the voice of a nervous debtor begging for an extension on their mortgage. It was Derek Vance, dressed in a sleek charcoal overcoat, holding a wet black umbrella in one hand and a thick leather briefcase in the other.
Behind Derek stepped two heavy-set men in dark tactical suits, who immediately turned the deadbolt on the glass door and pulled down the blinds, cutting off the view from the street.
Marcus froze, his thumb hovering over his stack of cash. His eyes narrowed, his hand sliding slowly toward the open desk drawer where a snub-nosed .38 revolver lay beneath a pile of paper receipts.
"Who the hell are you?" Marcus growled, pushing his chair back.
Derek didn't answer. He simply stepped aside and opened the door wider.
Julian Croft walked into the dingy office.
He looked wildly out of place. His thousand-dollar handmade shoes stepped pristine over the filthy linoleum floor. His long black cashmere coat was immaculate, utterly untouched by the rain outside. He carried no weapons. He carried no guards in front of him. He simply walked into the center of the small room and looked around at the stained walls with a look of mild, aristocratic disgust.
Marcus Kane’s face drained of every ounce of color. The cigarette slipped from his lips, falling onto his desk and smoldering against a stack of loan applications.
"Croft..." Marcus choked out, his voice instantly losing its street-tough gravel, turning thin and reedy with sudden, overwhelming terror. "Mr. Croft... I... we didn't know you had business on this block, sir. If the O’Malley family owes you a street tax—"
"I am not here for O’Malley," Julian said quietly, walking over to the desk. He didn't sit down. He stood over Marcus like a judge preparing to read a death sentence to a condemned murderer.
Julian reached out with a gloved hand and picked up a paper file sitting on the edge of the desk. He flipped it open.
TORRES, MAYA.
Inside was a copy of Maya’s driver’s license, her home address in Pilsen, her mother’s death certificate, and a handwritten ledger of every payment she had made over the last fourteen months.
Julian stared at her small, smiling driver’s license photo for five seconds. Then he slowly closed the file, holding it in his hand.
"You visited Sweet Wheat Bakery last Thursday," Julian remarked softly, his voice conversational, as if discussing the weather. "You stood outside in the rain. You told a twenty-three-year-old girl that if she did not produce five thousand dollars, you would break her little brother’s legs."
Marcus swallowed hard, sweat suddenly breaking out in heavy beads along his hairline. "Mr. Croft... listen... it was just debt collection tactics! We do that with everybody! She signed a legal contract—"
BOOM!
Julian didn't draw a gun. He simply reached out, grabbed Marcus by his leather jacket collar, and slammed his head down onto the metal desk with the force of a sledgehammer!
Paperwork flew into the air! The metal desk groaned under the impact!
Marcus screamed, blood instantly spurting from his shattered nose onto the stack of hundred-dollar bills scattered across the surface.
Julian didn't let go. He held Marcus’s face pinned hard against the bloody metal desk, leaning down until his dark, terrifying eyes were an inch from the trembling man’s ear.
"She does not owe you a contract," Julian whispered, his tone so low and sharp it vibrated through Marcus’s skull. "She does not owe you a penny. She does not owe your boss, your company, or your family a single second of her life."
"Okay! Okay!" Marcus sobbed, blood dripping down his lips. "The debt is canceled! It's gone! I'll wipe the database right now!"
"You will not just wipe the database, Marcus," Julian said, his fingers tightening in Marcus’s hair, pulling his head up an inch before slamming it down a second time.
CRACK!
Marcus let out a guttural shriek of agony.
"You will hand over every hard drive, every paper record, and every original signature page for Maya Torres and Clara Torres," Julian commanded smoothly. "And then, you will take your little briefcase, you will pack your desk, and you will leave the city of Chicago before midnight."
"Where... where am I supposed to go?" Marcus wept, clutching his broken face.
May you like
Julian released his collar, letting Marcus’s bloody head flop onto the desk like a wet rag. Julian pulled a pristine white silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, carefully wiping a single drop of blood off his thumb before tossing the silk rag onto Marcus’s back.
"I do not care where you go, Marcus," Julian said, turning his back on the broken loan shark, walking toward the door as Derek stepped forward with a heavy black industrial shredder and a USB wiping drive. "But if I ever see your face within fifty miles of Cook County again... I will not bring a handkerchief."
