Chapter 6 - The Penthouse Trap
Hazel yanked her arm back with enough force to break his grip, stepping out of the circle of light cast by the gallery spotlights.
“Do not touch me in public, Callum,” she hissed through clenched teeth, her eyes flashing with pure fury. “Do you have any idea what you just did? You blew the entire surveillance net. Moretti will have those server logs wiped before midnight. We had a chance to cut his financial legs out from under him, and you threw it away because you couldn't stand the idea of another man standing next to me!”
Callum didn't back down. He closed the distance again, ignoring the curious glances of the socialites murmuring by the bar.
“You think this was about a financial net?” he said, his voice dropping into a harsh, vibrating growl. “Look around you, Hazel. This entire gallery opening was a setup. Marco!”
Marco stepped forward instantly, holding a small digital tablet displaying the exterior security cameras of the South Loop Pavilion. On the screen, two black Cadillac Escalades with tinted windows had just pulled up to the curb, blocking the VIP valet exit. Four men in heavy leather jackets had stepped out into the mist, their hands buried deep in their pockets.
“Moretti didn't send Julian to recruit you,” Callum said, his voice deadly serious now, stripping away the jealousy to reveal the cold tactician beneath. “He sent Julian to isolate you. The moment you walked out of this building to let him drive you home, you were going into the back of an Escalade. Moretti wanted leverage to stop the midnight shipment at Pier 14.”
Hazel stared at the tablet screen. The anger in her eyes didn't vanish, but it transformed instantly into the sharp, analytical focus that made her invaluable. She recognized the driver of the lead vehicle—Jimmy ‘The Hook’ Varga, Moretti’s chief enforcer.
“They’re boxing the front entrance,” she observed quietly, her mind already calculating escape vectors.
“They have the front and the alley,” Marco added. “We have four men in the back, but if we start shooting in an art gallery, CPD will have thirty squad cars here in four minutes.”
Callum took off his tuxedo jacket and draped it over Hazel’s bare shoulders. The heavy fabric was warm, smelling of his cologne and the night air.
“We’re leaving through the service tunnel into the transit hub,” Callum said, his hand taking hers—not in a gesture of control, but with an iron grip that brooked no argument. “Marco, draw them toward the main valet. Fire a warning shot if you have to, make them think we’re pushing through the front. Get them scrambled.”
“On it, boss,” Marco said, turning back toward the main foyer.
Callum led Hazel through the private catering kitchen, past bewildered prep cooks and towering racks of clean glassware, straight to the industrial freight elevator at the rear of the building. He swiped an override card he had clearly obtained before arriving, and the steel cage plunged downward into the subterranean service tunnels beneath Michigan Avenue.
Neither of them spoke as the elevator descended. The mechanical hum of the motor filled the small space.
Hazel pulled his jacket tighter around her chest. “How long have you known about the ambush?”
“Twenty minutes before I walked through the door,” Callum replied, watching the floor indicator lights blink. “Lev intercepted a burner radio transmission from Varga. I told you this morning, Hazel: in my world, there are no coincidences. A civilian doesn't stumble into your life by accident.”
“He wasn't a civilian,” she conceded quietly, looking down at the scuffed concrete floor. “I should have caught it. I was... sloppy.”
Callum turned to look at her. The harsh fluorescent light of the elevator caught the emerald silk of her dress and the dark waves of her hair. She looked vulnerable for the first time since she had walked into his office three years ago with a forged recommendation letter and the sharpest mathematical mind he had ever encountered.
“You weren't sloppy,” Callum said, his voice softer than she had ever heard it. “You wanted something normal. Just for five minutes. You wanted a man who bought you flowers and didn't have blood on his hands.”
Hazel looked up, her jaw tightening. “Don't psychoanalyze me, Mr. Sullivan.”
“I’m not psychoanalyzing you,” he said, stepping closer as the elevator ground to a halt with a heavy metallic clunk. “I’m telling you that you can't have normal. Not while you’re with me.”
The steel doors rattled open, revealing the damp, dimly lit service corridor that connected to the underground parking garage of the historic railway terminal.
Parked fifty yards away under a flickering yellow light was Callum’s backup vehicle—a matte-black, armored Land Rover Defender.
They moved quickly through the shadows. Callum unlocked the doors with a remote chirp, ushering Hazel into the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel. The engine roared to life with a deep, supercharged growl.
He slammed the transmission into gear, tearing out of the subterranean garage and bursting onto the rain-slicked surface of Columbus Drive just as sirens began to wail in the distance behind them.
For twenty minutes, Callum drove like a professional wheelman, weaving through the grid of downtown streets, doubling back through the lower levels of Wacker Drive to ensure no tails had picked up their scent. The city was a blur of neon reflections and rushing water.
Finally, the Defender pulled into the subterranean private lift of the Sullivan Tower. The hydraulic platform engaged, lifting the vehicle directly into the private, fortified penthouse suite on the 45th floor—three levels above the corporate offices.
The elevator doors opened into a sprawling, two-story residence of concrete, dark walnut, and panoramic floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the storm raging over Lake Michigan.
Callum cut the engine.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Hazel unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out of the vehicle onto the polished terrazzo floor. She stood in the center of his private living room, his tuxedo jacket still hanging from her shoulders, looking around the minimalist, masculine space.
There were no decorations here, either. A massive low-profile leather sofa, a fireplace built into a raw steel wall, and a commercial-grade bar stocked with high-end scotch.
“You brought me to your home,” she said, turning to face him as he stepped out of the truck, loosening his bow tie with one hand.
“Your apartment in Lincoln Park is compromised,” Callum said, tossing his car keys onto the marble kitchen island. “Moretti knows where you sleep. Until my men sweep your street and put Varga in the ground, you stay here.”
Hazel took a slow, deep breath. She reached up, slipped his heavy jacket off her shoulders, and let it fall onto the back of the sofa. The emerald dress shimmered in the low, ambient light of the city.
“And what about the docks?” she asked. “It’s 11:15 PM. Pier 14 opens in forty-five minutes. If Moretti is moving on you, he’s not just hitting this gallery—he’s hitting the shipping containers.”
Callum stopped. His eyes locked onto hers, dark, heavy, and burning with a tension that had been building for three years, pushed past the breaking point by twenty-four hours of jealousy, violence, and adrenaline.
“Let him try,” Callum whispered, walking slowly toward her, his steps unhurried, deliberate, and predatory. “Marco has fifty men at the docks with automatic weapons and thermal scopes. Pier 14 is a fortress tonight. But right now... I don't give a damn about the docks.”
He stopped six inches in front of her. The heat radiating off his body was palpable.
“You’re on my floor, Hazel,” he murmured, his voice thick with possession. “You’re in my house. You’re breathing my air.”
May you like
Hazel tilted her head back, her hazel eyes glittering with a dangerous, defiant challenge.
“And what are you going to do about it, Mr. Sullivan?”
