Their private security is military-grade.
And our spotters at the lakefront report that the auxiliary blast doors near the river have just been detonated from the inside.
Vincent is on the surface.”
A dark, cold smile crept back across Jonathan Vance’s face.
“Of course he is.
He is a Moretti.
He believes in honor, blood, and territory.
He will go straight to the Gold Coast to protect the old woman.”
Chapter 98 – Siege of the Iron Citadel
The armored black Suburban roared out of the subterranean service tunnel near the Chicago River, its heavy snow tires throwing up plumes of slush as it hit the dark, unlit asphalt of Michigan Avenue.
Snow was falling heavily now, fat, silent flakes blanketing an eerie, dead city.
The skyscrapers that normally blazed with millions of lights stood as gigantic, pitch-black monoliths against the stormy winter sky.
Only the flashes of distant fires and emergency sirens pierced the dark.
Vincent drove with grim, surgical precision, one hand on the wheel, his wounded ribs tightly wrapped in combat gauze beneath his tactical vest.
Emma sat in the passenger seat, a suppressed sidearm resting in her lap, her eyes scanning the darkened alleyways.
“You really think they let us escape that tunnel?”
Emma asked quietly.
“Jonathan Vance doesn’t let anyone escape,” Vincent replied, taking a sharp turn onto Lake Shore Drive.
“He wants me to go to Elena.
He knows that as long as I have an emotional tether, I have a vulnerability.”
“Then why are we walking into it?”
Vincent looked at her, his dark eyes burning with an unyielding, primal fury.
“Because in the Moretti family, we don’t abandon the people who gave us our spine.
My grandmother saw something in you the night you stopped Victoria Sterling from striking her.
She knew who you were before I did.”
Emma looked down at her hands, still stained with blood and soot.
“I was just doing what was right.
Nobody should be hit like that.
Not an old woman.
Not anyone.”
“And that,” Vincent said softly, “is why Marcus Ward locked the Core to your bloodline instead of anyone else.
He knew the world would eventually be ruled by monsters unless someone with a conscience held the keys.”
Ten minutes later, the iron gates of the Moretti estate came into view.
The grand stone mansion sat on an elevated bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, normally a picture of historic luxury.
Tonight, it looked like a fortress under siege.
Two burned-out SUVs blocked the main driveway, their metal frames still hissing in the snow.
Spent brass casings littered the cobblestones like golden leaves.
As Vincent’s Suburban slammed through the breached gate, heavy spotlights on the mansion’s roof flared to life, blinding them.
“Cease fire!
Cease fire!”
Kane’s voice boomed from the roof via a megaphone.
“It’s the boss!
Open the inner doors!”
Vincent brought the vehicle to a halt under the stone portico.
He leaped out, pulling Emma with him, and pushed her through the heavy mahogany doors as three heavily armed Moretti security guards formed a wall of flesh behind them.
Inside, the great hall was dim, lit only by candlelight and the crackle of the massive stone fireplace.
Sitting in a high-backed velvet armchair near the hearth, wrapped in a dark cashmere shawl, was Elena Moretti.
In her lap lay a vintage, polished silver revolver.
Chapter 99 – The Ghost Protocols
Vincent knelt beside his grandmother’s chair, pressing his forehead against her frail, jewel-ringed hand for a brief second.
“Are you hurt?”
“I am annoyed,” Elena corrected, her dark eyes flashing.
“Vance’s trash shot up my rose garden and ruined my imported French doors.
Where is Thomas Sterling?”
“Dead,” Vincent replied.
“At the bottom of the lake.”
Elena nodded once, a grim acknowledgment of an old blood debt settled.
Then her gaze shifted to Emma, who stood near the grand staircase, gripping her weapon.
Elena held out a hand toward her.
“Come here, child.”
Emma stepped forward, kneeling beside the old woman.
Elena took Emma’s bruised, soot-covered hand in her own, running her thumb over the cut Vincent had made across her palm.
“You look just like your grandmother, Catherine Ward,” Elena whispered softly.
“She had the same fierce chin.
The same stubborn heart.
When Marcus went into hiding, he made my husband promise that if the world ever turned completely black, the Moretti family would protect his heirs with our lives.”
“Mrs.
Moretti…”
Emma began, her throat tightening.
“They’re coming here.
Jonathan Vance is alive.
He wants the cipher.”
“I know Jonathan is alive,” Elena said, a chilling smile touching her wrinkled lips.
“I was the one who helped him fake his death fifteen years ago.”
Vincent’s head snapped up, his gaze locking onto his grandmother with profound disbelief.
“What?”
