Chapter 6 - The Anatomy of a Threat
The city of Chicago beneath the winter clouds was a machine of steel and grease, but inside the high-rise offices of the Marcone Holdings building, the air smelled of imported cigars and expensive cognac.
Vincent Marcone sat behind a glass desk that overlooked the frozen shoreline of the lake. He was sixty, with hair like silver wire and teeth that had been capped in white porcelain to hide the rot underneath. Across from him sat a man in a tailored gray suit—Andrew Whitmore, the disgraced former partner of the Hale & Bridger law firm, currently out on a massive bail agreement while his appeal for the foundation scandal made its way through the courts.
"Damian hasn't left the North Shore estate in five days, Vincent," Andrew said, leaning back in his leather chair, a thin file resting on his knees. "He’s moved his primary routing servers to the house. Our proxies inside the logistics division say he’s freezing all international shipments until Q4."
Vincent let out a short, wheezing laugh, the smoke from his cigar curling around his ears. "He’s protecting the brat. He thinks because he killed my nephews at the railyards that I’m going to forget the blood line."
"It’s not just the brat," Andrew said, sliding a photograph across the glass desk.
The image showed Nola Vance standing in the Union Station corridor, her hand holding Leo’s, her face turned upward toward Damian’s silhouette.
Vincent picked up the photo, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "Who is the girl?"
"A florist from the North Side," Andrew replied, his voice laced with a malicious, envious purr. "Nola Vance. Her boutique was a front for nothing—just a struggling civilian who got caught in the crossfire. But Damian bought her lease. He’s got her living in the eastern wing. My contacts say she’s the only person the boy will look at without screaming."
Vincent dropped the photo back onto the desk, his porcelain teeth clicking together with a sickening sound.
"A florist," Vincent murmured, his fingers tapping against his gold lighter. "Damian Valdez has spent ten years building a wall of ice around his empire. He’s survived three assassination attempts, two federal grand juries, and an all-out turf war at the docks. And now he’s let a girl with dirt under her fingernails into his bedroom."
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He stood up, walking over to the window, his eyes fixing on the distant northern horizon where the Valdez fortress sat beneath the pines.
"Call our people at the port, Andrew," Vincent commanded, his voice dropping into a dark, swampy register. "Tell them to release the secondary shipment of digitalis precursors. We don't need to break the iron gate to get inside that house. We just need to poison the garden."
