Chapter 2 - Shadows on Halstead Street
Twenty minutes earlier, the neon sign of the nameless bar on Halstead Street had hummed its familiar, low-frequency drone.
Elena was wiping down the sticky mahogany counter with a rag that had seen better decades, her mind miles away in the quiet, agonizing safety of her studio apartment. Sully was in the back office counting inventory, the faint clink of coin rolls drifting through the open door.
The door chime jingled—a cheap brass bell Sully had wired himself.
Three men walked in. They didn't look like the usual regulars—the construction workers looking to drown a bad shift, or the lonely old men who nursed a single draft for two hours just to have a warm place to sit. These men wore tailored suits that looked out of place among the dust and cigarette smoke. Their shoulders were broad, their strides purposeful, and their eyes scanned the corners of the room with the practiced vigilance of wolves entering a sheepfold.
Elena didn't look up immediately. She kept wiping the counter, her heart giving its familiar, cautious stutter. On the south side, men in nice suits meant trouble. Men in nice suits meant the past had finally found a forwarding address.
"We're closed," Elena said quietly without raising her eyes. "Open at four tomorrow."
"We're not here for a drink, sweetheart," the lead man said. His voice was smooth, carrying a faint Chicago accent mixed with something colder. "We're looking for someone who knows how to keep her mouth shut."
Elena froze. The rag in her hand went rigid against the wood.
Before she could speak, the back office door swung open. Sully stepped out, his massive frame blocking the narrow hallway. He didn't reach for the sawed-off shotgun he kept beneath the register, but his weight shifted onto his bad knee—the universal tell that he was ready for violence.
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"The lady said you're closed," Sully said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that could stop a fight before it started. "Take your business elsewhere. We don't serve your kind of trouble in here."
The man in the lead smiled, but his eyes stayed dead. "Old man, you don't know what kind of trouble just walked through your door."
