“Because your grandmother left the original ledger—the De Rossi blood ledger containing the offshore identities, numbered accounts, and murder contracts of Helena’s entire cabal—in a trust,” Dominic chimed in from the console.
“A trust that can only be unlocked by a genetic heir of your bloodline.”
Emma’s breath hitched.
“They need my blood… or Leo’s.”
“They don’t need you dead, Emma,” Vincent said, his eyes darkening to a shade of black that promised total annihilation.
“They need the boy’s DNA to seize billions in offshore assets, and once Helena has that money, she will burn this city to the ground.
But she forgot one fundamental truth.”
Chapter 35 – Bloodhound Protocol
By three in the morning, the rain had intensified into a raging squall that battered the skyline of Chicago.
Inside the war room, Dominic tapped furiously on multiple keyboards, his headset crackling with encrypted satellite relays.
“The helicopter was a decoy,” Dominic announced, zooming in on thermal satellite footage over Lake Michigan.
“It dumped transponders into the water near Navy Pier and turned southwest toward the industrial rust corridor of Gary, Indiana.
Helena’s pilot was ex-French Foreign Legion.
They landed in an abandoned rail sorting yard near the steel mills.”
“Gary?”
Emma leaned over the table, analyzing the blueprints Dominic had brought up.
“That area is a ghost town.
Miles of abandoned warehouses, toxic slag heaps, and rusted rail tracks.”
“It’s a fortress,” Vincent corrected.
“Helena bought those steel yards thirty years ago under shell corporations registered in Liechtenstein.
The rail yard has subterranean maintenance tunnels that connect directly to the Calumet shipping canal.
If she reaches a cargo freighter on that canal, she can take Leo onto international waters.
Once she’s past the maritime boundary, we will never see him again.”
“Then we strike now,” Emma said without hesitation, her hands balling into fists.
Vincent looked at her, his expression tight with concern.
“Emma, you are not a soldier.
You stopped a spoiled socialite in a ballroom with bravery, but this is a paramilitary cell.
Helena has spent thirty years planning this vengeance.
The men guarding that yard are mercenaries, not private security guards.”
“Leo is my sister’s son!”
Emma shouted, stepping right into Vincent’s personal space, refusing to back down.
“My sister died giving birth to him!
I raised that boy on minimum wage, working twelve-hour shifts at diners and catering halls!
I cleaned toilets and endured humiliation from the likes of Victoria Sterling so he could have a future!
If you think I’m going to sit in this ivory tower while that monster hurts him, you don’t know me at all, Vincent Moretti!”
Vincent stared at her, the cold fury in his amber eyes suddenly shifting into something profound—a fierce, unspoken respect that cut through the darkness of his past.
“Dominic,” Vincent ordered without breaking eye contact with Emma.
“Give her tactical vest Level-IV ceramic plating.
Fit her with a suppressed sidearm and an emergency beacon.
Show her how to clear a jam.”
Dominic nodded grimly.
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 36 – The Steel Foundry
Four heavily armored, blacked-out SUVs tore through the desolate highways connecting South Chicago to Gary, Indiana.
The rain beat against the reinforced glass like gravel.
Outside, the decayed, rusted silhouettes of blast furnaces and towering smokestacks rose into the night sky like the skeletal remains of a forgotten civilization.
“Thermal scans show two dozen heat signatures inside the main blast furnace hall,” Dominic reported via the encrypted comms link from the lead vehicle.
“Heavy perimeter sensors around the rail switch tracks.
They have snipers posted on the two eastern cooling towers.”
“We cut the power to their mobile generators first,” Vincent commanded into his tactical headset.
He was fully outfitted in matte-black tactical gear, looking less like a billionaire CEO and more like the lethal operative his father had trained him to be.
“Team Two, take out the cooling tower perches with suppressed fire.
Dominic, breach the western maintenance gate.
Emma and I will enter through the lower slag runoff tunnel.”
“Understood,” Dominic responded.
The vehicles killed their headlights a mile out, coasting to a silent halt behind a massive heap of coal slag.
Emma’s pulse hammered in her ears as she stepped out into the freezing mud and rain.
The suppressed pistol at her hip felt heavy, foreign, and deadly, but the thought of Leo crying in the dark replaced all fear with ice-cold resolve.
Vincent moved with terrifying speed and silence.
He slipped through the rusted chain-link fence where Dominic had breached the perimeter, his movements calculated and predatory.
Emma followed two paces behind, keeping low beneath the shadow of abandoned railcars.
Thwip.
Thwip.
Two muffled pops sounded high above them.
