Chapter 2 - The Extraction
The single sentence hung in glowing pixels against the dim cubicle: *You should have left it alone.*
Chiara’s breath hitched in her throat. Before she could touch the keyboard, Giovanni leaned over her shoulder, his palm coming down flat on the hard drive power switch. The machine died with a sullen whine, plunging the screen into blackness.
“They’re pinging the internal network,” Giovanni said, his voice entirely devoid of panic. “Which means someone in your building’s security hub just tripped a trace on this IP address.”
“That’s impossible,” Chiara whispered, her voice tighter than she wanted it to be. “Only Julian Vance had administrative oversight on the South Loop subnet.”
“Julian Vance left two hours ago,” Giovanni countered, his gray eyes fixing hers in the gloom. “And he didn’t leave to go home to his wife in Naperville. He left on a chartered flight out of Midway that never filed a final manifest. Which means, Miss Sacco, you are the only loose end sitting in an empty building with five million dollars’ worth of my money pinned to your login ID.”
Footsteps echoed from the outer hallway—heavy, hurried, and accompanied by the metallic click of a fire door opening without an access badge.
Giovanni didn’t look toward the noise. He simply reached out and caught Chiara by the upper arm. His grip was firm through the thick fleece of her three-sizes-too-large gray hoodie, but it wasn’t bruising. It was the grip of a man who moved people like chess pieces—decisive, unyielding, and impossible to argue with.
“Dante,” Giovanni said quietly.
The tallest of the three men who had entered with him stepped into the cubicle threshold. He carried a suppressed semi-automatic pistol close against his thigh, his posture completely relaxed, as though he were waiting in line at a deli rather than ambushing a midnight audit.
“Front stairwell is hot, boss,” Dante reported, his eyes darting toward the corridor. “Private security firm. Not the night guards who drink coffee by the lobby desk. These are cleaners.”
“Take the freight lift to the basement bay,” Giovanni instructed. He pulled Chiara out of her rolling chair. Her boot caught the corner of the metal desk, sending a plastic tray of paperclips clattering across the carpet. She lunged down instinctively to gather her canvas tote bag, but Giovanni’s hand shifted to the small of her back, thrusting her forward with clean, irresistible force.
“Leave the bag,” he commanded.
“My life is in that bag!” she hissed, digging her heels into the industrial carpet. “My notes, my passport, my inhaler—”
“Your life is currently walking down that hallway with ceramic body armor and hollow-point ammunition,” Giovanni murmured directly into her ear, his breath warm against the chill that had settled on the back of her neck. “If you want to breathe tomorrow morning, leave the paper behind.”
Chiara looked at him. Really looked at him. In the dim, buzzing light of the dying office, Giovanni Greco did not look like the tabloid rumors of an organized crime scion. He was tall, his broad shoulders cutting a clean silhouette against the glass partitions, his jaw shaded by dark stubble that matched the raven hue of his combed-back hair. But behind the aristocratic perfection of his features lay something ancient and ruthless. The scar across his right knuckles was mirrored by a faint line running through the arch of his left eyebrow.
He was a predator who had learned how to wear Italian wool.
She let go of the tote.
“Move,” Giovanni said.
They cut through the copy center and down the service corridor, Dante leading with his weapon raised and the other two men trailing in a defensive diamond. Chiara felt the strange, disorienting sensation of being caught in an avalanche. For four years, she had survived in Chicago by being nothing—a shadow behind spreadsheets, a face people looked through, a girl who wore shapeless men’s sweaters and baggy cargo trousers so no one would see the waistline or the hips that had drawn all the wrong kinds of attention in the foster system.
Now, her heart slammed against her ribs like a trapped bird.
They reached the heavy steel doors of the freight elevator. Dante hit the key switch, and the heavy metal gates rattled upward with a deafening groan. Just as the gate opened, the unmistakable crack of a silenced shot punched through the fire door at the far end of the hall.
Drywall exploded into dust two feet above Chiara’s head.
She didn't scream. Screaming had never helped her when a foster parent was swinging a belt, and it wouldn't help her now. Instead, she dropped instinctively, ducking her head between her knees.
Giovanni moved faster. His arm wrapped around her waist, lifting her nearly off her feet as he dragged her backward into the elevator car. The impact threw her chest against his hard torso. Even through the absurd bulk of her oversized sweatshirt, she could feel the rigid steel of his chest and the heat radiating off him.
“Suppress them,” Giovanni told the two rear guards. “No bodies on the street. We’re not answering to the feds before breakfast.”
The guards stepped outside the gate, their weapons coughing in short, rhythmic bursts. Dante slammed the manual lever, and the elevator plunged into the darkness of the shaft, descending toward the underground loading dock.
Chiara stood pressed against the corrugated metal wall, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Her hands were shaking so hard she had to shove them into the front pouch of her hoodie to hide the tremor.
Giovanni stood inches away, staring down at her. His gaze wasn't on the exit or the gun in his hand. He was watching the pulse hammering in the hollow of her throat, where her collar had slipped slightly askew.
“You didn’t scream,” he noted.
“Screaming wastes oxygen,” she snapped, her voice trembling despite her best efforts. “Who were those people?”
“Men sent to make sure Julian Vance doesn’t have to share his retirement fund.” The elevator hit the basement with a heavy thud. The gates slid open, revealing an armored black Cadillac Escalade idling in the bay, its headlights cutting through the damp exhaust.
Dante cleared the perimeter with a swift sweep of his weapon, then opened the rear passenger door.
“Get in, Miss Sacco,” Giovanni said, stepping back just far enough to let her pass.
Chiara hesitated. Beyond the underground garage lay the rain-swept expanse of Chicago. If she got into that vehicle, the thin fiction of her quiet, invisible life would dissolve permanently. She would be entering the domain of the Greco syndicate—a world where people disappeared without death certificates.
“And if I choose to take my chances with the CPD?” she asked, looking him dead in the eye.
A ghost of a smile touched the corner of Giovanni’s mouth. It was a cold, sharp thing.
“The detective in charge of the First District payroll was bought by my father twelve years ago,” Giovanni said evenly. “If you walk out to Michigan Avenue, you’ll be picked up in ten minutes. By sunrise, you’ll have suffered an accidental overdose in a holding cell, and my five million will be laundered through an offshore casino.”
He leaned down slightly, bringing his gaze level with hers.
“With them, you’re an inconvenient witness. With me, you’re the only person who can read the ledger.”
He held open the door.
May you like
Chiara swallowed the bitter taste of copper in her mouth, pulled her hood lower over her face, and stepped into the darkness of the car.
***
