Chapter 10 - The Sovereign Choice
The wind howled through the boathouse slats, throwing fine sprays of freezing lake water across my face.
Uncle Corrado stood just five feet away on the wooden pier, leaning heavily on a cane, his eyes burning with an unholy mixture of vengeance and desperation.
The Russian mercenary beside him kept his suppressed barrel leveled directly between my eyes, his finger resting casually along the trigger guard.
"Step out of the boat, Elena," Corrado ordered, his voice trembling with manic satisfaction.
"Turn off the engine, toss your weapon into the water, and we might let you give birth before we end this."
My fingers remained hidden beneath the oversized sweater, curled tightly around the grip of the Glock Luca had shoved into my hands.
Every instinct in my body screamed to surrender, to beg for my child's life, to fall to my knees.
Then, I remembered Luca’s words in the Palmer House ballroom.
*You aren't just my wife.*
*You are the queen of this city.*
A queen does not beg for the life of her heir; she defends it with blood.
"You look tired, Uncle," I said, my voice shockingly level, loud enough to cut through the hum of the twin diesel engines.
"A few weeks in a concrete cell didn't do much for your complexion."
Corrado’s face twisted in rage.
"Kill her," he spat to the Russian contractor.
"We don't need the child anymore; the Bratva already owns the north docks."
The mercenary’s knuckle began to whiten as he took up the slack on the trigger.
I didn't wait.
I threw my weight backward into the cockpit, slamming my palm down onto the emergency throttle lever with all my strength while simultaneously pulling the trigger of the Glock through the heavy knit of my sweater.
The diesel engines roared, the boat leaping forward like a caged beast suddenly unleashed.
The twin propellers caught the water, throwing a blinding wall of spray into the mercenary’s face just as his weapon discharged.
The bullet cracked through the fiberglass windshield right where my head had been half a second before, showering me in shattered plexiglass.
My blind shot from beneath the sweater struck the mercenary in the thigh.
He screamed, his footing slipping on the ice-covered dock as the surging wake of the boat slammed against the pilings.
Uncle Corrado lost his balance entirely, his cane clattering across the wood as he tumbled hard into the freezing slipway.
The heavy bow of the armored launch smashed through the wooden boathouse gates with an explosive splintering of timber, bursting into the open, churning darkness of Lake Michigan.
Snow slammed into my face, blinding and brutal, as the thirty-foot launch hit the six-foot winter swells.
Behind me, the estate on the bluff was blazing with light and smoke, flames licking through the roof of the main house.
I reached for the marine radio on the console, my hands shaking so violently I could barely turn the frequency dial.
"Channel sixteen," I whispered through chattering teeth, remembering the code.
"Channel sixteen, this is Elena Moretti!"
Static hissed through the speaker, harsh and cold.
"This is Elena Moretti!" I screamed into the receiver, fighting the wheel as a massive wave crashed over the bow, soaking my clothes in freezing water.
"Is anyone there?!"
A second of silence stretched into eternity, filled only with the roar of the lake wind.
Then, the radio crackled to life with a crisp, clear signal.
"We have your transponder, Elena," Bianca Romano’s voice cut through the static, completely steady, laced with cold authority.
"Look to your starboard bow."
I turned my head toward the south.
Through the blizzard, the dark silhouettes of three massive Coast Guard-style interceptor cutters emerged from the mist, their searchlights cutting through the falling snow in brilliant, blinding beams.
On the lead boat’s deck stood a dozen armed men bearing the Romano crest.
The radio crackled again.
"The Russian convoy was ambushed on the highway by my family ten minutes ago," Bianca said over the line.
"Their retreat is cut off."
"And Luca?" I choked out, tears finally breaking through my frozen eyelashes, the terror threatening to stop my heart entirely.
"Tell me he’s alive, Bianca!"
The radio hissed with empty air for three agonizing seconds.
"He was still standing when our extraction team entered the front gates," Bianca replied, her tone unreadable.
"He took out seven men in the foyer, Elena."
"He was hit twice more."
"They're carrying him to the bunker now, but you need to make a decision."
The searchlights from the lead cutter pinned my boat in a halo of white light, illuminating the black water all around me.
"What decision?" I gasped, clutching the steering wheel, shivering violently as the ceramic vest pressed against my swollen belly.
"The cutters can escort you to an airstrip in Gary," Bianca stated plainly.
"There is a private jet fueled and waiting to take you to a clinic in Switzerland."
"You can walk away from this blood, Elena."
"You can take your child, change your name, and live in the sun where no one will ever point a gun at your baby again."
"Or?" I asked, my voice dropping, my eyes drifting back toward the burning estate on the snowy bluff where my husband’s blood had been spilled for the second time to keep me safe.
"Or you turn that boat toward the Chicago harbor," Bianca said, the weight of the underworld hanging in her words.
"You take your place beside whatever is left of your husband."
"You sit at the head of the table tomorrow morning, and you execute the remaining traitors yourself."
"If you come back, Elena, you are no longer the innocent woman Luca tried to hide."
"You are the Don."
I stood alone in the cockpit of the boat, rising and falling with the violent swells of the dark, frozen lake.
Behind me lay the path of absolute safety, a quiet life in exile, peace for the child growing beneath my heart.
Ahead of me lay the burning skyline of Chicago, a city steeped in blood, a wounded husband fighting for his breath in a smoke-filled bunker, and an empire waiting to be claimed or destroyed.
I looked down at my hands.
The diamonds on my wedding band were flecked with dried blood and gunpowder soot.
May you like
My baby kicked against my ribs, a tiny, fierce flutter of life defying the frozen night.
I reached for the throttle, my fingers wrapping firmly around the cold steel handle, and made my choice.
