Chapter 6 - The Siege of River North
The black armored sedan tore through the Chicago drizzle at eighty miles per hour, its sirens concealed beneath the front grille, clearing traffic along LaSalle Street with ruthless urgency.
I sat in the passenger seat, my fingers digging into the leather dashboard, my phone pressed to my ear.
“Mia! Pick up! Please, God, pick up!” I prayed aloud through clenched teeth.
The line rang four times before Mia’s frantic voice exploded through the speaker.
“Elena! Thank God!” Mia screamed over the background sound of splintering wood and loud, echoing thuds. “There are three men in dark jackets trying to breach the corridor fire door! The hotel security guards were knocked out in the stairwell!”
“Take Leo into the master bathroom!” I shouted into the phone, terror turning my vision white. “Lock the deadbolt! Dante and I are sixty seconds away!”
Dante slammed the steering wheel with his palm, cutting hard across three lanes of traffic, jumping the concrete median of Grand Avenue in a shower of sparks and screeching rubber.
He pulled his encrypted radio from the console, barking an authorization code that rattled the speakers:
“All tactical units in Sector One, priority convergence on the Peninsula Suite, River North! Code Red! Deadly force authorized on all unauthorized personnel!”
The sedan skidded to a halt directly across the hotel’s valet drive, smashing through the brass luggage carts and mounting the curb.
Dante didn't wait for the engine to die.
He kicked his door open, drew his weapon from beneath his jacket, and sprinted through the revolving glass doors of the lobby like an avenging demon.
I ran right behind him, my heels discarded on the wet lobby floor, racing barefoot across the polished marble toward the executive elevator bank.
The elevator climbed to the fourteenth floor in twelve agonizing seconds.
When the brass doors dinged open, the corridor smelled of cordite, drywall dust, and ozone.
Two men in black tactical gear lay unconscious on the patterned runner carpet near Room 1408, their weapons knocked aside. Standing in front of the splintered oak door of our suite was a third man, holding a heavy steel crowbar, preparing to batter down the interior bedroom latch.
Dante didn't shout a warning.
He closed the distance in four thunderous strides, driving his heavy shoulder straight into the attacker’s spine.
The man flew across the hallway, his skull crashing against the marble baseboard with a sickening crunch before he crumpled into an unmoving heap.
“Elena! Clear!” Dante roared, kicking the splintered door of the suite wide open.
I rushed past him, tearing into the master bedroom.
“Mia! Leo!” I cried out, my voice cracking with hysterical panic.
The bathroom door clicked open slowly.
Mia emerged, pale as a ghost, clutching a heavy brass table lamp like a baseball bat.
Behind her, sitting on the plush bathmat, was Leo.
He was holding his stuffed bear, his wide gray eyes looking up at the commotion with confusion rather than fear, wearing his little yellow rain boots.
When he saw me, his face lit up with pure, innocent joy.
“Mommy!” Leo cheered, scrambling to his feet and running toward me with open arms.
I dropped to my knees on the carpet, catching my son against my chest, burying my face in the soft crook of his neck as racking, breathless sobs tore through my body.
“You’re safe… you’re safe, baby,” I wept, my hands frantically checking his arms, his forehead, his small chest for any injury. “Mommy’s got you.”
Footsteps approached the threshold of the bathroom, slow and hesitating.
Dante stood in the doorway, his weapon lowered, his suit jacket torn at the shoulder, his chest heaving as if he had run five miles through a swamp.
His eyes locked onto the boy clutched in my arms.
Leo turned his head, his small fingers still tangled in my hair, his gaze meeting Dante’s.
The little boy tilted his head, studying the tall, bruised man with that same serious, intense curiosity he had shown at the airport.
“Are you the man with my eyes?” Leo asked softly into the quiet room.
May you like
Dante’s knees gave out completely.
The terrifying underworld prince of Chicago fell hard onto both knees on the hotel carpet, pressing his face into his trembling hands, weeping in loud, broken gasps of overwhelming, uncontainable grief and love.
