Chapter 3 - The Shadow Over Lake Forest
I sat behind the heavy mahogany desk in my second-floor study, the rain outside slamming against the reinforced double-paned glass like thrown gravel.
Across from me sat Leo, my chief of security and the only man alive who had bled with me in three different continents. He was forty-five, built like a brick wall, with a jagged white scar running from his ear down to his collarbone—a souvenir from the Chicago territory wars of 2012.
"The server in Geneva is real," Leo said, setting a encrypted tablet onto my desk. "Our IT team pinged the IP address. It's a dead-man's switch. If Valeria—or Evelyn, whatever the hell we're calling her—doesn't input a biometric key every seventy-two hours, the Newark manifests hit every federal prosecutor in Illinois."
"She's thorough," I muttered, staring into the dark amber liquid in my glass.
"She's a liability, Matteo," Leo growled, leaning forward, resting his heavy forearms on his knees. "She put her hands on you in the cellar. She's training your kid to be a soldier. Give me twenty minutes with her down in the basement, and I'll extract the biometric key."
"No," I said instantly.
Leo frowned. "Why not? Since when do we negotiate with ghosts?"
"Since my daughter stepped in front of her baton," I answered, looking up. "Grace didn't just defend her, Leo. Grace trusted her. In twelve years, my daughter has never trusted a single person outside of this room. If we kill Valeria, I lose Grace forever."
"She's twelve, Boss! She'll get over it!"
"She won't," I snapped, setting the glass down with enough force to rattle the ice. "Because Grace isn't stupid. She knows what I do. She knows why there are men with submachine guns sitting in the shrubbery outside her bedroom window. She's spent her whole life knowing she's the weak point in my armor."
A quiet knock sounded at the door.
Valeria walked into the study, flanked by two guards who kept their hands firmly on their holstered weapons. She had changed out of her training gear into a dark wool coat, her hands tucked neatly into her pockets. She looked completely relaxed, as if she were attending a parent-teacher conference rather than standing in the lair of Chicago's primary syndicate leader.
"Leave us," I told the guards and Leo.
Leo hesitated, his hand hovering near his shoulder holster. "Matteo—"
"Out."
The heavy oak doors clicked shut, leaving us alone in the massive, dimly lit library.
Valeria didn't wait for an invitation. She walked over to the leather armchair across from my desk and sat down, leaning back comfortably. "You look tired, Matteo. Protecting an empire is exhausting work when you're doing it alone."
"Cut the garbage, Valeria," I said coldly. "You brought up the Bellona crest. You brought up the people who wiped out your family. Who is coming?"
Valeria's relaxed posture vanished. Her chin lifted, her dark eyes locking onto mine with lethal precision. "Don Corvo."
The name hit the room like a dropping anchor.
Don Corvo wasn't a local player. He was the head of the Syndicate's Eastern Bloc operations—a man who had spent the last two decades buying up shipping lanes, federal judges, and mercenary groups across Eastern Europe and North America. He was cold, invisible, and completely merciless.
"Corvo is in North America?" I asked, my blood running cold.
"He arrived in Toronto three weeks ago," Valeria said smoothly. "He's consolidating the midwest trade routes. He knows about your father's old debts, Matteo. And more importantly, he knows about Grace's medical trips to Johns Hopkins."
My hand twitched toward the desk drawer where my custom Kimber .45 sat. "He targeted her medical transport?"
"Not yet," Valeria said. "Because I intercepted his scout in Detroit two months ago. That's why I came here. I knew you'd be looking for domestic threats—the Morettis, the local street syndicates, the FBI. You were so busy watching the front door that you never noticed Corvo setting up a sniper line on your back porch."
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"And you think teaching a twelve-year-old girl how to block a wooden stick is going to save her from Corvo's hit squad?"
Valeria leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "I'm not teaching her how to win a gunfight, Matteo. I'm teaching her how to survive the three minutes between the moment the glass shatters and the moment your men reach her room. Because when Corvo comes, your guards won't be enough. They'll be dead."
