Chapter 2 - The Glass Fortress
The heavy leather seats of the armored Cadillac Escalade smelled of rain, expensive gun oil, and three melting scoops of strawberry ice cream.
In the middle row, the triplets sat pressed together like three little birds in a storm. Their names were Maya, Lily, and Chloe. They were five years old, with dark curls, stubborn chins, and striking gray-blue eyes that matched Vincent Rossi’s exactly.
In the front passenger seat, Linda sat rigid as iron. Her hands were clenched tightly in her lap, her knuckles white, her face drained of all color as she stared out the tinted window at the passing neon signs of downtown Chicago.
Vincent sat behind the wheel. His hands gripped the leather steering wheel so hard the leather groaned under his calloused palms.
"You didn't answer me, Linda," Vincent said, his deep, gravely baritone cutting through the quiet hum of the engine. "Why?"
Linda didn't turn her head. "Drive the car, Vincent. You have three children in the back. If you want to interrogate me, don't do it while you're driving ninety miles an hour down Michigan Avenue."
Vincent glanced in the rearview mirror. Three pairs of identical blue eyes were staring back at him with a mix of awe and child-like terror.
Maya—the bold one who had pointed at his tattoo—leaned forward, touching the leather headrest. "Are you the monster Mommy told us about?"
The sentence hit Vincent harder than a nine-millimeter bullet to the chest.
He didn't flinch, but his jaw locked so tight a muscle twitched violently under his skin. "What did she tell you about me, little girl?"
"She said our daddy was an angel who went to heaven," Lily softly chimed in from the middle seat, holding a paper napkin to her sticky chin. "But she said the men with tattoos like yours were monsters who took angels away."
Vincent’s gaze snapped to Linda. The silence between them turned lethal.
Ten minutes later, the SUV pulled through the heavy iron gates of the Rossi estate in Lake Forest.
The estate was a fortress—thirty acres of manicured lawns surrounded by twelve-foot stone walls, razor wire, and fifty heavily armed men in black suits. The main house looked like an old European castle, constructed from dark gray stone and reinforced with three-inch ballistic glass.
When the car stopped in the private subterranean garage, six armed guards stepped forward to open the doors.
"Boss," Marco, Vincent’s chief of security, said with a sharp nod. "We saw the motorcade coming in on the cameras. Is everything alright?"
"Take the perimeter," Vincent commanded, stepping out of the vehicle and slamming his door shut. "Nobody enters the estate grounds tonight. Not my brothers, not the council, nobody. If Don Carmine Falcone’s men so much as breathe near the gates, put them in the dirt."
"Understood, Boss," Marco nodded, his eyes flickering toward Linda and the three little girls stepping out of the Escalade, but he was wise enough not to ask a single question.
Linda stepped out, immediately wrapping her arms around all three girls, pulling them close against her worn denim jacket. She looked around the cavernous, gleaming garage, her eyes wild with panic.
"This is a mistake, Vincent," Linda whispered, her voice trembling as he stepped up to her. "You can't keep us here. I have a job at the florist shop. The girls have school tomorrow. You can't just snatch us off the street like we're your property!"
Vincent stepped so close he blocked out the bright overhead fluorescent lights. He towered over her, six-foot-three of solid muscle, expensive tailored wool, and absolute authority.
"You've been hiding my daughters in a run-down two-bedroom apartment over a laundromat for five years, Linda," Vincent growled softly, leaning down until his dark eyes were inches from hers. "You work twelve-hour shifts while a teenager watches them. I have sixty billion dollars, three private hospitals, and an army. You are never sleeping in that apartment again."
"They are my daughters!" Linda snapped back, her eyes flashing with a sudden, fierce anger that reminded him of the girl he had fallen in love with seven years ago. "I raised them! I bled for them! I held them through every fever, every nightmare, every tear while you were out executing people in dark alleys!"
Vincent leaned closer, his hand coming up to gently grasp her chin, holding her face steady. His thumb brushed over her bottom lip, feeling her shake.
"And now I'm going to hold them," Vincent said coldly. "And I'm going to hold you. Up."
May you like
He turned toward the private elevator leading up into the main house.
"Follow me," he ordered. "Or I'll carry you. Choose."
