Chapter 4 - The Fortress of Oak Park
The sleet was already turning the sidewalks into sheets of gray ice when I walked out of the hospital's revolving doors.
Alexander followed me onto the wet concrete, signaling to an idling black Maybach fifty yards away.
Before the driver could pull forward, a modest silver sedan honked its horn from the passenger pickup lane.
The window rolled down, revealing Nathan, Alexander’s longtime childhood friend and former syndicate consigliere.
Nathan had resigned from the Moretti organization four months ago, walking away from the underworld to open an independent civil law practice.
"Claire!" Nathan called through the cold rain. "Get in! The roads are freezing over!"
I walked straight toward Nathan’s car, opening the passenger door and climbing into the warm, dry cabin.
Alexander stood on the curb, his eyes widening in pure, paralyzed disbelief as he recognized the man behind the wheel.
"Nathan?!" Alexander roared, striding toward the car with his fists clenched.
"What the hell is this?! You've been helping her hide from me?!"
Nathan kept the doors locked, rolling his driver's side window down just two inches.
"I didn't help her hide, Alexander," Nathan said evenly, his voice calm and unyielding.
"I helped her finalize an uncontested divorce because you were too busy taking Sophia to private dinners at the Drake to read your legal mail."
"She was carrying my son, Nathan!" Alexander slammed his palm against the reinforced glass.
"You let my pregnant wife live in an apartment while I tore the city apart looking for her?!"
"She wasn't your wife anymore, Alexander," Nathan replied coldly.
"And she explicitly asked me, as her legal representative, to protect her privacy from your organization."
"Now step away from my vehicle before I call the local precinct."
Alexander looked through the passenger window, his eyes locking onto mine.
He looked like a man drowning in ten feet of water, watching the lifeboat pull away from the shore.
"Claire... please," he mouthed against the glass, rain plastering his dark hair against his forehead.
"Drive, Nathan," I said softly, looking straight ahead at the road.
Nathan shifted the car into drive, pulling smoothly into the traffic flow, leaving the most feared Don in Chicago standing alone in the freezing rain.
In the rearview mirror, Alexander didn't get into his Maybach.
He stood on the curb in the downpour, watching our taillights disappear until the sleet swallowed him whole.
Forty minutes later, Nathan pulled up outside my modest, two-story brick craftsman cottage in Oak Park.
The house was warm, surrounded by bare oak trees and a small wooden porch I had decorated with winter evergreen wreaths.
Nathan carried my groceries inside, setting them on the kitchen butcher-block island.
"He's not going to stop, Claire," Nathan warned gently, leaning against the counter.
"Alexander has controlled every aspect of his life since he was twenty-two years old."
"Knowing you walked away with his son will drive him to the brink of madness."
I poured two cups of hot chamomile tea, handing one to my loyal friend.
"Alexander can tear Chicago apart if he wants to, Nathan," I said, resting my hand over my baby.
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"But this house is outside his territory."
"And the woman who used to wait by the phone for his permission to breathe died six months ago."
