Chapter 8 - The Safe House on Clark Street-8-
The safe house was an unassuming brick brownstone tucked away on a quiet, snow-choked side street on Chicago’s North Side. From the outside, it looked like a modest, lived-in home with drawn curtains and a faint plume of smoke rising from the chimney. From the inside, it was a fortress of communications equipment, secure monitors, and reinforced steel shutters.
Leo led us inside, locking three separate deadbolts behind us before sweeping through the rooms to check the perimeter feeds.
"You're secure here," Leo said, setting a heavy duffel bag of supplies on the kitchen counter. "There’s food in the pantry, fresh blankets upstairs, and a secure comms terminal if the boss checks in."
"When will we hear from him?" I asked, pacing across the hardwood floor while Emma finally drifted off to sleep on a floral sofa, exhausted by the night's terrifying events.
"When the dust settles," Leo replied simply, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and heading toward the back door. "Stay inside, keep the lights low, and don't answer the door for anyone unless they give the daily verification code."
"Which is?"
"The color of the sky at midnight," Leo said, stepping out into the cold night air and pulling the door shut behind him.
I was left alone in the silent brownstone. The adrenaline that had carried me through the escape from the estate was finally wearing off, leaving behind a hollow, numbing exhaustion. I walked over to the front window, peering cautiously through the slats of the wooden blinds. The street was empty, buried under a fresh blanket of white snow that muffled the distant sounds of the city.
Why had Alessandro trusted me?
That question echoed through my mind as I sat down at the kitchen table, staring at the secure laptop Leo had left plugged into the counter. I wasn't a criminal. I wasn't part of the underworld. I was just a desperate mother with a rent notice in her purse and a three-year-old daughter who liked to share her cookies with broken men.
Slowly, almost against my better judgment, I reached out and tapped the spacebar of the laptop. The screen flickered to life, illuminating the dark kitchen with a harsh blue glow.
Instead of a login prompt, the screen displayed a live, encrypted feed of the Moretti estate's west-wing office.
My breath caught in my throat.
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The room on the screen was a disaster area. Bookshelves had been overturned, papers littered the floor like autumn leaves, and the massive oak desk was splintered down the center. Julian Vance stood in the middle of the room, his expensive suit rumpled, a thin line of blood trickling from a cut above his eyebrow.
And sitting right in front of him, calm and unbothered in his black wheelchair, was Alessandro.
