Chapter 2 - The Lion's Den
The smell of cordite replaced the delicate aromas of garlic and truffle.
Victor fired three measured shots around the edge of the mahogany counter. Outside, a man screamed, followed by the dull thud of a body hitting the pavement. Elias returned fire with a compact submachine gun he had produced from beneath his overcoat, laying down a suppressing hail of lead that drove the shooters back into the rainy Chicago night.
"Black SUV at the curb!" Elias shouted over the ringing in my ears. "Two shooters down, driver is pulling back! Reinforcements are thirty seconds out!"
"We don't have thirty seconds," Victor replied. He turned to look down at me. I was curled in a ball, glass dust dusting my hair and uniform, my hands clamped over my ears. "Molly. Look at me."
I opened my eyes, trembling uncontrollably.
"Can you run?" he asked.
"I—I think so," I stammered, my heart slamming against my ribs like a caged bird.
"Good. Because if you stay here, they will peel the skin from your bones to find out how you knew about their poison." Victor offered me his hand. It was large, calloused, and perfectly steady.
I took it. His fingers closed over mine with surprising gentleness, and with an effortless pull, he hauled my heavy frame up off the floor.
He didn't shove me ahead of him or treat me like dead weight. He kept his broad body between me and the shattered front entrance, guiding me with a firm hand on the small of my back toward the kitchen's service exit. Armand was already being dragged through the swinging doors by one of Victor's men, leaving a trail of blood from a grazing bullet wound on his calf.
In the alleyway behind Lumiere, a reinforced black Cadillac Escalade was already idling, its tires throwing up sheets of dirty alley water.
"In," Victor ordered, holding the heavy armored door open.
I scrambled into the leather-trimmed interior, feeling ridiculously out of place. My uniform was torn at the shoulder, revealing pale skin and the strap of a faded bra. My hands were coated in soot and grease. Victor slid in beside me, his long legs brushing against my thighs as the door slammed shut with the heavy, vacuum-sealed thud of a bank vault.
Elias jumped into the front passenger seat, barking commands into a radio. "Route Delta. Lock down the river perimeter. If anything with tinted windows moves within three blocks of the Drake, shred it."
The SUV surged forward, throwing me back against the buttery leather.
I squeezed my eyes shut, clutching my apron. "My purse... my coat... they’re in the locker room."
"They are gone, Molly," Victor said softly from beside me.
I opened my eyes. He had already holstered his weapon. He was pulling a clean silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. Without asking, he reached out and gently dabbed a smear of blood from my forehead where a flying shard of chandelier crystal had cut my skin.
His touch was warm. Shockingly tender for a man who had just put two bullets into another human being's chest without blinking.
"I need my inhaler," I mumbled, my lungs constricting as shock finally set in. "And my insulin. I left my bag..."
Victor immediately turned to Elias. "Call Dr. Evans. Have a full metabolic and medical kit waiting at the Lake Shore penthouse. Now."
"On it, Boss," Elias said, glancing in the rearview mirror with a look that bordered on awe. He had spent years guarding Victor Hastings from the deadliest killers in the Midwest, but tonight, an overweight waitress in torn tights had done what his entire security detail had failed to do.
"Who are you, Molly Higgins?" Victor asked, leaning his head back against the seat, his intense gaze pinning me once again. "No ordinary waitress can recite organophosphate toxicity mechanisms while staring down the barrel of a nine-millimeter."
I swallowed, staring at my trembling, chapped hands.
"I was a junior at the University of Illinois Chicago," I whispered, the memories tasting like ash in my mouth. "Biochemical pharmacology. Top of my class. I had a scholarship... until my father’s trucking company went bankrupt."
"Arthur Higgins?" Victor’s eyes narrowed slightly.
I looked at him in surprise. "You knew my father?"
"I know of him," Victor corrected himself smoothly. "An honest man who refused to move contraband through the Calumet Harbor. He lost his business three years ago under suspicious circumstances."
"It wasn't suspicious," I said, a spark of old bitterness breaking through my terror. "A rival syndicate planted fentanyl precursors in his trailers, called the feds, and stripped him of every asset he owned. He had a massive stroke during the trial. I dropped out of UIC to pay for his nursing home care. When he died eight months ago, I was left with eighty thousand dollars in medical debt and a resume that qualified me for nothing except washing dishes and serving steak to men who could buy my life with pocket change."
Victor remained silent for a long moment, watching the neon lights of Michigan Avenue streak across the rain-slicked window.
"The syndicate that framed your father," Victor said, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "Did they operate under the name Morretti?"
My breath hitched. "Yes. Vincent Morretti."
Victor smiled, but there was no warmth in it. It was the smile of a tiger stepping out of the tall grass.
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"Then it seems, Molly, that fate has a rather dark sense of humor. Because the man who ordered that poison on my plate tonight... was Vincent Morretti."
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