Chapter 11 - THE DEVIL OF CHICAGO
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The tactical firefight lasted less than ninety seconds.
Dominic moved through the smoking forest like an unstoppable force of nature, flanked by twelve elite Moretti operators in full body armor.
Suppressed rifle fire echoed in tight, devastating bursts: double taps that dropped the remaining mercenaries into the wet underbrush before they could even re-aim.
The surviving shooters threw their weapons into the mud, dropping to their knees with their hands clasped behind their heads in desperate surrender.
Vanessa was scrambling on her hands and knees through the ditch, her designer clothes soaked in mud and her own blood.
She reached out, her trembling fingers clawing toward the fallen pistol resting near our rear tire.
A heavy leather combat boot came down on her wrist with bone-jarring force.
Vanessa let out a piercing shriek of agony as the weapon was kicked thirty feet away into the woods.
Dominic stood over her, his assault rifle lowered, his chest heaving with cold, controlled fury.
His black dress shirt was torn at the shoulder, stained with soot and grease from the rail terminal fire, but he was entirely unharmed.
He didn't say a single word to her.
He didn't even look at her face.
Dominic turned on his heel, dropping his weapon onto the hood of our car, and threw open the rear door.
“Claire!” his voice broke, thick with raw terror.
“Dominic!” I cried out, scrambling out of the vehicle with Maisie wrapped tightly in my arms.
Dominic pulled both of us into his embrace with an iron grip that lifted us off our feet.
He buried his face into my neck, his broad frame shuddering with the overwhelming relief of finding us alive.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered fiercely against my skin, his hands checking my arms, my face, and Maisie’s back for injuries.
“I’ve got you both.”
Maisie threw her small arms around his neck, burying her face into his collar.
“Daddy! Daddy! The bad lady tried to pull my arm!” Maisie sobbed into his shoulder.
Dominic held her tight, his hand gently supporting the back of her head, pressing soft, desperate kisses into her hair.
“She will never touch you again, baby,” Dominic promised, his voice cracking with emotion.
“Daddy is here.”
He passed Maisie to Marco, who was already receiving field dressings from a tactical medic.
“Take them to the command vehicle,” Dominic ordered Marco softly.
“Keep the doors locked.”
I grabbed Dominic’s sleeve before he could turn away.
“Dominic... what are you going to do?” I whispered, looking toward the ditch where Vanessa lay shivering in the mud.
Dominic looked into my eyes, the warmth in his face vanishing instantly, replaced by the terrifying, merciless Don of Chicago.
“She broke the decree of the Commission, Claire,” Dominic said, his voice flat as a frozen grave.
“She brought a gun to my daughter’s head.”
“In my world, there is only one sentence for that.”
He walked slowly toward the ditch where two Moretti guards had hauled Vanessa to her feet.
Vanessa was weeping hysterically, her broken nose bleeding freely down her chin, her knees trembling so badly she could barely stand.
“Dominic, please!” she wailed, begging for her life.
“My father made me do it!”
“He said if we took the girl, you would give us back the docks!”
“I never wanted to hurt her!”
Dominic stopped two feet from her, folding his hands behind his back.
“You lied to me four years ago, Vanessa,” Dominic said softly.
“You abandoned my daughter in a charity hospital.”
“You tried to starve her at my own dining table.”
“And today, you brought mercenaries to murder the woman who raised her.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek satellite phone, tapping the screen to connect a video call.
On the screen appeared Don Carmine Falcone and the four ruling bosses of the Chicago Commission.
Dominic held the camera toward Vanessa’s battered, bloody face.
“Don Falcone,” Dominic said into the speaker.
“Vanessa Bellini was captured forty miles inside Cook County, leading an armed assault on my family’s transport convoy.”
Falcone’s milky eyes hardened into pure flint on the digital display.
“The Commission issued a decree of absolute exile, Dominic,” Falcone rasped, his voice carrying the weight of ancient law.
“She is an outlaw.”
“The council has no jurisdiction over her fate.”
“Do what must be done to protect your blood.”
The call disconnected with a sharp electronic tone.
Vanessa let out a strangled shriek of absolute, hopeless terror.
Dominic lowered the phone, looking at Marco.
“Do not put her in the ground,” Dominic commanded coldly.
Vanessa blinked through her swollen eyes, a desperate flicker of hope igniting in her chest.
“You... you’re letting me go?” she stammered.
“Death is too clean for you, Vanessa,” Dominic replied, his voice colder than the northern wind.
“You are going to a federal correctional facility in Terre Haute, Indiana.”
“I have delivered twenty years of your father’s offshore tax fraud, human trafficking files, and federal conspiracy records to the Department of Justice.”
“Alberto was arrested at O’Hare Airport twenty minutes ago trying to board a private jet to Bogota.”
“You and your father will spend the next forty years in separate maximum-security cells.”
“No silk gowns.”
“No champagne.”
“No servants to command.”
“Just four gray concrete walls and the knowledge that the child you threw away is inheriting everything you ever dreamed of.”
Vanessa began to scream, thrashing violently as two guards snapped heavy steel handcuffs around her wrists and dragged her toward a transport van.
Her shrill cries faded into the distance as the vehicle sped away down the highway.
The nightmare of the Bellini family was officially, permanently extinguished.
Dominic walked back to the armored command truck where Maisie and I sat waiting.
May you like
He climbed into the back seat, pulled the heavy steel door shut, and wrapped his arms around both of us.
As the convoy rolled back toward the estate, the sun broke through the clouds over Lake Michigan, washing away the blood, the fear, and the shadows of the past.
