Chapter 12 - Evanston Burning
The screech of burning rubber tore through the quiet morning streets as Luca’s heavy black SUV accelerated up Lake Shore Drive toward Evanston. Nina sat in the passenger seat, gripping the dashboard with white knuckles, her mind racing through triage protocols. In the back seat, Sophie was buckled in tight, wearing heavy noise-canceling headphones connected to a tablet, intentionally kept oblivious to the frantic comm chatter roaring through the dashboard radio.
“Tommy’s pulse is bounding, but he reports no direct blast injuries,” Nina said, rapidly reading through the real-time biometric feed streaming from Tommy’s smartwatch to Luca’s dashboard terminal. “His oxygen saturation is ninety-eight percent. Gus, what kind of chemical agent are we dealing with?”
“White phosphorus and industrial dispersant, Nurse Kowalski,” Gus replied over the secure frequency, his heavy breathing audible between bursts of static. “Smoke’s clearing now. Campus security and Evanston police have the entire university quad cordoned off. The feds are swarming, but they’re treating it like an environmental hazmat spill. They have no idea it’s a distraction.”
“Because it wasn't meant to kill Tommy,” Luca snarled, swerving hard around a sluggish delivery van as the speedometer climbed past eighty miles per hour. His face was a mask of cold, chiseled fury. “Dmitri is testing our response times. He wants to see which assets I deploy to protect my nephew versus what I keep around my daughter.”
“Then we don't go to Evanston,” Nina said firmly, turning her torso to face Luca directly.
Luca shot her a razor-sharp glance. “My nephew is trapped inside that dormitory, Nina.”
“Gus has four former military operators inside that perimeter right now,” Nina reasoned, her voice steady, clinical, and completely devoid of panic. “The Evanston police department has a tactical perimeter two blocks deep. If Dmitri’s team wanted Tommy dead, the truck would have detonated with high-grade Semtex, not a low-yield phosphorus flare designed to draw flashing red lights. He’s herding you, Luca! Think like the general you used to be, not a panicked guardian!”
Luca’s knuckles flexed against the leather-wrapped steering wheel. For three agonizing seconds, the silence inside the cabin was suffocating. Then, his breathing leveled out. The wild, predatory spark in his eyes settled into an icy, calculating stillness.
“You’re right,” Luca murmured. “He wanted me on the north expressway, sixty minutes out of downtown, while his secondary team cleared the board behind us.”
“Dad?” Sophie’s small voice piped up from the back. She had pulled off one side of her headphones, looking nervously out the tinted windows at the soaring high-rises whipping past. “Why are we driving so fast? That wasn't the turn for my school.”
Nina turned around, offering the young girl a calm, warm smile that completely belied the terror knotting in her stomach. “Change of plans, Sophie. Your dad and I decided today is an unannounced hooky day. We’re heading somewhere safe to grab hot chocolate and figure out that science project.”
Sophie looked between Nina’s reassuring hazel eyes and her father’s stern posture, her innate intuition sensing the invisible current of danger. Yet seeing Nina’s calm demeanor, the tension in Sophie’s small shoulders relaxed. “Okay. But only if we get marshmallows.”
“Double marshmallows,” Luca promised softly in the rearview mirror.
Luca pulled a hard, tire-smoking U-turn across an empty median, diving off the expressway toward the labyrinthine underpasses of Chicago’s industrial rail corridors. He tapped the dashboard screen, bringing up an encrypted private channel.
“Gus,” Luca commanded. “Extract Tommy via the underground steam utility tunnels Henry Kowalski mapped under the northern district. Bring him directly to the safehouse beneath the old Fulton Market meatpacking terminal. Do not use corporate vehicles. Steal municipal maintenance trucks if you have to.”
“Copy that, Boss,” Gus replied. “What about you?”
“Dmitri left a calling card on Belmont,” Luca said, his eyes scanning every rooftop, alley mouth, and utility van parked along the decaying brick warehouses. “He wants an audience with the man who killed his brother. I’m going to give him one, but strictly on my terms.”
“Luca, look,” Nina interrupted, pointing toward a side street parallel to the river.
May you like
An unmarked dark gray utility van was idling near an abandoned grain elevator. The driver’s side mirror caught the sunlight, reflecting a distinctive silver tattoo etched across the operator’s neck—the two-headed serpent of Dmitri Petrov’s European syndicate.
Before Luca could hit the gas, the van’s side door slid open. A launcher tube emerged, aimed not at the front bumper, but directly at the railroad overpass twenty yards ahead of them.
