Chapter 8 - BENEATH CHICAGO
The elevator descended thirty feet.
Then forty.
Tessa gripped the side rail.
Vincent watched the tunnel emerge beneath Warehouse 18.
Old brick walls.
Rusting rail tracks.
Electrical cables recently installed.
This place was not abandoned.
Someone had modernized it.
Cameras rotated overhead.
A steel security door waited at the end of the platform.
Vincent looked toward one.
“Matteo.”
No answer.
“Where’s Maya?”
The speaker clicked.
“Safe.”
“Not good enough.”
“You’ll see her when we’re finished.”
The door opened.
Vincent did not move.
Tessa leaned toward him.
“We don’t have much choice.”
“We always have a choice.”
“What’s ours?”
Vincent looked back at the elevator.
It had already risen.
“Apparently a limited one.”
They entered.
The first room contained filing cabinets.
Hundreds.
Each labeled with names.
Companies.
Officials.
Police districts.
Construction firms.
Judges.
Unions.
Vincent recognized half the names.
Some were dead.
Some were currently powerful enough to appear on television every week.
Tessa stared.
“This is Black Crown?”
“Part of it.”
A screen activated.
Matteo appeared again.
“Your father believed memory was power.”
Vincent rolled toward the nearest drawer.
“Then he should have bought a computer.”
“He did.”
Matteo said.
“Those were less secure.”
Tessa read one label.
“Calder.”
Vincent opened the drawer.
Inside were photographs.
Bank records.
Meeting logs.
A newspaper clipping from twenty years earlier.
Arthur Calder standing beside Salvatore Corvino at a groundbreaking ceremony.
Vincent pulled out a folder.
Inside was a signed agreement.
Calder had borrowed twelve million dollars from a Corvino shell company.
Never repaid.
Instead, payments had been redirected through campaign accounts.
Leverage.
Exactly as Marco described.
Tessa asked, “Why show us?”
Matteo answered.
“Because Vincent needs to understand what his father left behind.”
Vincent closed the folder.
“I understand blackmail.”
“No.”
Matteo said.
“You understand the word.”
“Not the architecture.”
The screen changed to a diagram.
Companies linked to accounts.
Accounts linked to properties.
Properties linked to trustees.
At the center was Black Crown.
Vincent recognized something immediately.
The harbor properties formed the financial hub.
“If the redevelopment goes through…”
he whispered.
Matteo finished.
“Black Crown’s physical assets become traceable.”
“So somebody wants the harbor deal stopped.”
“Some.”
“And others?”
“Want it completed quickly enough to bury the transfers inside new ownership structures.”
Vincent thought about Dominic pushing the papers.
Calder negotiating.
Original ownership documents disappearing.
“Who controls it?”
he asked.
Matteo shook his head.
“That is why we are here.”
“You don’t know?”
“My father never trusted me with the key.”
Vincent laughed coldly.
“Imagine that.”
Matteo’s face tightened.
“You inherited his name.”
“His company.”
“His house.”
“His respect.”
“I inherited tuition checks sent through lawyers.”
Vincent stared at him.
“I didn’t choose that.”
“No.”
Matteo admitted.
“But you benefited from it.”
“So this is revenge.”
“If I wanted revenge, you would have died in the rain six months ago.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“You know who shot me.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Matteo looked away.
Then back.
“Dominic pulled the trigger.”
The words did not register at first.
Tessa said nothing.
Vincent’s face became still.
“No.”
“You saw him at the restaurant.”
“That proves he was there.”
“I have the rifle.”
Vincent’s heartbeat changed.
“Show me.”
A drawer unlocked automatically across the room.
Tessa opened it.
Inside a long evidence case rested a rifle.
Vincent recognized the caliber.
Matteo said, “Ballistics match the bullet fragments removed from your spine.”
Vincent felt sick.
“Why would Dominic shoot me?”
“Ask him.”
“Give me the reason.”
Matteo’s expression softened.
“I don’t know.”
Vincent almost laughed.
“You claim he shot me but don’t know why?”
“I know what happened.”
“Not why.”
“Then how do you know he pulled the trigger?”
Another video appeared.
The restaurant.
Rain.
Dominic crossed the street.
Entered a parking structure.
Minutes later, a figure wearing a hood appeared on the second level carrying a rifle case.
The face was not visible.
The figure positioned near an opening.
Vincent left the restaurant.
The rifle fired.
The figure ran.
A later camera caught the person descending stairs.
For half a second the hood slipped.
Dominic’s face.
Tessa covered her mouth.
Vincent stared.
“No.”
Matteo said nothing.
Vincent watched again.
And again.
It looked like Dominic.
But something felt wrong.
He knew his brother’s gait.
Dominic had broken his left ankle playing hockey at seventeen.
Ever since, when moving quickly, his left foot turned outward slightly.
The shooter did not.
“Fake.”
Vincent said.
Matteo frowned.
“What?”
“The video.”
Vincent pointed.
“That isn’t Dominic.”
“You saw his face.”
“I saw a face.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Watch the feet.”
Matteo replayed it.
Vincent explained.
The figure’s stride remained symmetrical.
Matteo became silent.
Tessa whispered, “Someone wanted this footage found.”
Vincent nodded.
“Just like the photograph.”
Someone was creating a chain.
Lauren.
Dominic.
Marco.
Matteo.
Everyone implicated.
Everyone suspicious.
Nobody conclusively guilty.
Matteo’s face hardened.
“I did not alter the video.”
“I believe you.”
That surprised him.
“Why?”
“Because whoever is doing this wants us to kill each other.”
Vincent looked around Black Crown.
“And they want access to this.”
The lights suddenly flickered.
Matteo turned sharply toward someone off camera.
“What happened?”
No answer reached Vincent.
The lights flickered again.
Then shut off.
Emergency lamps turned red.
Tessa moved beside Vincent.
“What’s happening?”
The speaker crackled.
Matteo’s voice.
“Stay where you are.”
An alarm began.
Vincent heard gunfire somewhere deeper underground.
Not recorded.
Real.
Matteo shouted through the speaker.
“They found us.”
“Who?”
Vincent yelled.
No answer.
Another burst of gunfire.
The security door behind them slammed shut.
Tessa crouched beside Vincent’s wheelchair.
Vincent drew his pistol.
Footsteps approached from the tunnel.
Fast.
Multiple people.
Then a man stumbled through the far doorway.
Blood on his shirt.
Vincent did not recognize him.
The man collapsed.
Behind him appeared Arthur Calder.
He held a gun.
Tessa froze.
Calder raised it.
Vincent aimed.
“Don’t.”
Calder stopped.
His expression was terrified.
“Vincent.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Trying not to die.”
“You have an interesting way of negotiating real estate.”
Calder looked behind him.
“They’re coming.”
“Who?”
Calder’s face twisted.
“You still don’t understand.”
The lights behind him went dark one by one.
Someone was moving through the tunnel.
Calder whispered.
“Your father never built Black Crown to protect your family.”
Vincent tightened his grip.
“What did he build it for?”
Calder looked directly at him.
“To control it.”
A shot cracked.
Calder jerked.
The bullet struck his shoulder.
He fell.
Vincent fired twice toward the darkness.
A shadow disappeared.
Tessa dragged Calder behind a steel cabinet.
Calder gasped.
Vincent kept the pistol aimed at the corridor.
“Who?”
he demanded.
Calder pressed a hand to his shoulder.
“Who controls Black Crown?”
Calder looked at him.
Then said the last name Vincent expected.
May you like
“Lauren.”
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