Chapter 3 - The Safehouse on 4th and Elm
It took them nearly two hours to traverse the two hundred yards of wet, slippery concrete. Every foot was a battle against excruciating pain for the wounded man, and a test of sheer endurance for Hannah and Jade.
By the time they reached the rusted iron ladder leading up to the street grate behind the abandoned brickworks, the storm had settled into a steady, freezing drizzle. The night sky was beginning to bruise into a pale, sickly violet—the first signs of dawn approaching over Chicago.
Hannah climbed out first, scouting the desolate gravel yard behind the brick factory. Satisfied that no pursuers were waiting, she helped Jade up, then lowered a discarded rope down to help haul Moretti’s dead weight out of the pit.
When he finally collapsed onto the dry ground above, he was shivering uncontrollably, his skin a ghostly shade of grey.
"Where is Elm Street?" Hannah asked, checking her phone. The battery was down to three percent.
"Two blocks... east," Moretti muttered, his speech slurring now. "Red brick building... corner apartment... key in inner pocket..."
"I have the key," Hannah said, helping him lean against her shoulder. "Jade, hold my coat. Keep Leo covered."
They moved like ghosts through the dim light of dawn, dodging the main avenues and slipping down quiet alleyways. The neighborhood was run-down, lined with abandoned industrial complexes and broken streetlights—a place where people minded their own business because asking questions usually meant getting shot.
The building on 4th and Elm was an unassuming four-story brick structure with a rusted fire escape. Hannah dragged Moretti up the back stairs, her lungs burning, her legs trembling from sheer exhaustion.
When they finally reached door 3B, she pulled out the heavy silver key stamped with the lion emblem. She inserted it into the reinforced steel lock. It turned with a heavy, satisfying mechanical CLICK.
She pushed the door open, expecting a dusty, abandoned apartment. Instead, they stepped into a fortress.
The interior was stark, luxurious, and terrifyingly modern. High-tech security monitors lined one wall, displaying real-time camera feeds of the surrounding streets. A massive leather sofa sat in the center of the hardwood floor, and along the far wall stood a glass gun case filled with high-powered tactical rifles, body armor, and medical crates.
"Lock... the door," Moretti commanded faintly before his knees finally buckled completely. He crashed onto the polished floor, unconscious before he even hit the ground.
"Sis!" Jade gasped, locking the triple-deadbolts behind them.
Hannah didn't waste a second. She unzipped her coat and carefully transferred little Leo into Jade’s arms. "Jade, take him to the sofa. See if there’s any baby formula in those kitchen cabinets. I'm going to check his wounds properly."
Hannah knelt beside Moretti, flipping him onto his back. She tore open his shirt entirely. Now, under the bright LED lights of the apartment, the true extent of his injuries was clear.
The bullet in his side was still lodged near his hip bone, threatening to trigger fatal internal bleeding if it moved. But he was lucky—it hadn't pierced his intestines.
Hannah ran to the medical crate in the corner, throwing it open. Inside was every surgical instrument imaginable: sterile scalpels, cauterizing irons, military-grade suture kits, morphine auto-injectors, and IV plasma bags.
"He's not just some rich businessman," Hannah whispered to herself, her hands shaking as she pulled on a pair of sterile latex gloves. "Who are you?"
She picked up a heavy leather wallet she had taken from his jacket earlier and opened it. Inside were stacks of hundred-dollar bills totaling at least ten thousand dollars. But it wasn't the money that caught her breath.
It was a sleek, black titanium ID card set into the leather lining.
It bore a high-resolution photo of the man bleeding on the floor, beneath which were stamped bold, silver letters:
DOMINIC MORETTI SUPREME COMMANDER — MORETTI SYNDICATE
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Hannah felt the room spin. The Moretti family wasn't just a gang. They were the undisputed rulers of the Midwest underworld—a shadowy, ruthless empire that controlled every dock, shipping lane, and political figure from Chicago to Detroit.
And the man lying dying at her feet was their king.
