Et nous nous souvenons tous les deux comment son tragique accident de voiture sur l’autoroute Dan Ryan a été résolu, n’est-ce pas ?
Emma eut un hoquet de surprise, sa main se portant instinctivement à sa bouche.
Elle regarda Vincent.
Ses jointures étaient devenues complètement blanches, les veines de son cou étaient gonflées tandis que la vérité sur la mort de son père — une mort qu’il avait crue accidentelle pendant vingt ans — était dévoilée avec désinvolture au téléphone.
« Tu as gagné ta petite guerre municipale, Vincent », poursuivit la femme d’un ton indifférent, comme si elle parlait du temps qu’il faisait en prenant le thé du matin.
« Marcus Vance n’a aucune importance. »
La Maison Sterling n’est plus qu’une coquille vide.
Vous pouvez donc garder la ville de Chicago comme terrain de jeu pendant encore quelques heures.
But the global accounts that support Moretti Industries have already been initiated into default.”
“I hold the master keys to the domestic infrastructure,” Vincent said, every syllable laced with absolute venom.
“You cannot touch the ports or the rail lines without my signature.”
“We do not want your rail lines, Vincent,” the voice whispered with bone-chilling finality.
“We want what your father hid beneath the foundation of the old foundry in Gary, Indiana.
The consignment he stole from us thirty years ago.
And you are going to deliver it to us yourself.”
“And why would I ever do that?”
Vincent hissed.
There was a brief pause on the line.
Across the room, the large panoramic windows overlooking Lake Michigan shattered inward with a deafening crash as three red laser sights suddenly snapped through the pre-dawn gloom.
One red dot rested squarely upon the center of Vincent’s chest.
A second red dot painted the forehead of Senator Vance, ending his grotesque grin in an instant of sheer terror.
Chapter 62 – The Crimson Reticle
The red laser burned against Emma’s forehead like an ember of pure ice.
She did not flinch.
Survival in the underbelly of Chicago had taught her that hesitation killed, but panic killed faster.
Across the shattered penthouse floor, glass fragments glittered like fallen stars under the pre-dawn sky, shivering as the freezing wind off Lake Michigan howled through the ruined panoramic frame.
Vincent didn’t shout.
He didn’t bargain.
In a motion so instantaneous it defied human biology, he lunged across the blood-slicked mahogany.
His broad frame collided with Emma, wrapping an arm around her waist and hurling her downward behind the reinforced marble balustrade of the interior mezzanine.
A suppressed rifle cracked through the freezing air—thwip.
The high-caliber round missed Emma’s skull by a fraction of an inch, biting savagely into the solid oak column behind her and exploding it into jagged splinters.
A second later, another muffled percussion echoed from the rooftop across the street.
Senator Marcus Vance never even had time to scream.
The laser dot on his forehead flashed, and an armor-piercing round tore through his skull, throwing his limp body backward across the conference table, overturning crystal carafes and showering the mahogany in arterial crimson.
“Down!
Keep your head down!”
Vincent commanded, his voice a gravelly, controlled roar directly against Emma’s ear.
He pinned her flat against the reinforced marble with the full weight of his torso, effectively shielding her body with his own Kevlar-lined suit jacket.
The speakerphone on the floor—miraculously intact amidst the carnage—hummed with distorted static.
“Messy, Vincent,” the cold, aristocratic woman’s voice purred through the speaker.
“Marcus was getting tiresome anyway.
But you see our range.
You see our precision.
You have four hours until sunrise.
If you do not stand on the slag heap of Foundry Nine in Gary with the iron lockbox, the next bullet won’t miss Miss Ward.”
Click.
The line died.
Around them, the penthouse went eerily quiet, save for the howling gale ripping through the shattered glass.
“Vincent,” Emma whispered, her breath coming in shallow, frosty gasps against his lapel.
She could feel the violent pounding of his heart against her ribs, steady and lethal like an engine of war.
“Who was that?”
Vincent pulled back just enough to look into her eyes.
His jaw was set like carved granite, his dark eyes burning with an unholy fire she had never seen before.
“The people who murdered my father,” he said quietly.
“And the people who just made the fatal mistake of threatening you.”
Footsteps pounded on the lower stairs.
Mateo and four heavily armed Moretti vanguard operators burst through the double doors, submachine guns raised, their tactical goggles sweeping the perimeter.
“Perimeter breach on the north rooftop!”
Mateo barked into his comms.
“Smoke the floor!
Move the principal!”
Dense canisters of white phosphorus-blocking smoke hissed across the broken penthouse, blinding the thermal optics of the snipers across the bay.
