Chapter 4 - THE SAFEHOUSE IN ILLINOIS
The twin-engine Gulfstream G550 tore through the turbulent autumn skies toward the midwest at maximum velocity.
Inside the cabin, the mood was dead silent. Tactical gear, assault rifles, and Kevlar vests lay across the plush leather seats. Adrian was hunched over a laptop, monitoring regional police scanners and satellite tracking of the private airfield near Elgin, Illinois.
Hannah sat near the front, wrapped in Dominic’s heavy cashmere coat. Her injured hand throbbed, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the agony in her chest.
Dominic sat down in the seat across from her. He had shed his bespoke suit jacket, wearing a tactical black turtleneck and a ballistic vest. He looked lethal, imposing, and terrifyingly capable.
“Drink some water, Hannah,” Dominic said gently, opening a bottle and handing it to her.
Her hands trembled so violently that she almost spilled it. Dominic reached out, his warm, calloused fingers closing over hers to steady the bottle.
“I’m terrified, Dominic,” she admitted, looking into his dark eyes. “My mother has fought for three years. She gave up her career, her home, her daughter... just to keep me safe from the Sterlings. If Richard kills her because of me—”
“She won’t die,” Dominic interrupted, his voice solid as an anchor. “I gave you my word. Richard Sterling’s empire is built on money and corrupt judges. My empire is built on men who know how to wage war. He sent mercenaries. I am bringing retribution.”
Hannah swallowed hard, looking at the contrast between her small, pale hand and his scarred, powerful fingers.
“Why did Elena choose me?” she asked, a question that had been haunting her since the study. “She barely knew me. I was just Margaret’s daughter who visited on weekends during the summer.”
Dominic smiled faintly, a look of profound respect softening his hardened features.
“Elena was an exceptional judge of character,” he said. “She knew that if she left the foundation to me, I would use it as a weapon against the Sterlings and drown the city in blood. She knew that if she left it to Adrian, the Sterlings would leverage his fear to take it. But she knew Margaret. And she knew that Margaret had raised a daughter with an unyielding moral compass. Elena wanted those hospital charities to survive. She wanted the stolen money returned to the people who were suffering. She trusted you to do what was right, Hannah. And so do I.”
A warmth spread through Hannah’s chest, cutting through the icy fear that had paralyzed her for hours. She realized then that Dominic Moretti was not the monster the tabloids painted him to be. He was a protector who had been surrounded by treason and deceit, carrying the weight of a shattered world on his shoulders.
“Twenty minutes to landing!” Adrian called out from the cockpit partition. “Dominic, we have a problem. The Elgin regional hospital security grid just went dark. Two black commercial vans entered the southern service gate three minutes ago.”
Dominic stood up instantly.
“Gear up,” he ordered.
Hannah jumped to her feet. “I’m coming with you.”
“No,” Dominic snapped firmly. “You stay in the jet under armed escort.”
“She’s my mother!” Hannah cried, stepping right into his chest, her hazel eyes blazing with a fierce courage that startled him. “I know which room she’s in! The clinic is built like a labyrinth—it’s an old repurposed tuberculosis sanitarium! It has hidden sub-basement corridors that aren't on the hospital blueprints! If you go in blind, you’ll spend fifteen minutes clearing empty wards while they execute her in the basement!”
Dominic stared at her. For two seconds, he weighed the tactical risk against the fiery resolve in her eyes. He saw the same unyielding courage that had made her mother risk everything for Elena.
He reached down, picked up a lightweight Kevlar vest from the seat, and slipped it over her head, cinching the velcro straps tight against her ribs.
“You stay behind me at all times,” Dominic warned, his voice low and fiercely protective. “If I tell you to drop, you drop. If anyone points a weapon in our direction, you close your eyes and let me do what I was born to do. Understand?”
“Understood,” Hannah whispered.
The jet touched down on the rain-slicked runway of the private airfield with a screech of tires. The airstair dropped before the aircraft even came to a complete halt. Dominic, Adrian, and six elite Moretti operators poured out into the freezing Illinois drizzle, piling into two reinforced SUVs waiting on the tarmac.
The drive to the outskirts of Elgin took eight agonizing minutes.
As they approached the dilapidated brick facade of the St. Jude Community Hospice, gunshots echoed through the foggy midnight air.
Dominic’s lead SUV breached the rusted chain-link fence without slowing down, obliterating the gate and sliding sideways into the ambulance bay.
“Thomas Cole’s men are already inside!” Adrian yelled, racking the slide of his submachine gun.
Dominic turned to Hannah in the back seat, his hand cupping the nape of her neck, pulling her forehead against his for a fraction of a second.
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“Show me the way, Hannah,” he whispered against her skin. “Let’s bring your mother home.”
***