Chapter 8 - The Confrontation at the Warehouse
The abandoned meat-packing plant on the south bank of the Chicago River was cold, damp, and smelled faintly of rust and old iron.
Viktor Vance sat on a wooden crate in the center of the cavernous concrete room, his hands zip-tied behind his back, blood trickling from a split eyebrow where Marcus had introduced him to a concrete pillar five minutes earlier.
Heavy footsteps echoed across the floor.
Vincent Kane walked out of the gloom, wearing his heavy black wool overcoat, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. He didn't look angry. He looked like a man inspecting a damaged shipment before sending it to the incinerator.
"Vincent," Viktor spat, a defiant, bloody grin cutting across his face. "You're getting soft. Starting wars over a restaurant cleaner and her brat? Word on the street is you've gone domestic."
Vincent stopped two feet away. He looked down at Viktor with utter detachment.
"You sent men to watch a four-year-old child, Viktor," Vincent said. His voice didn't rise, but every word carried the weight of a death sentence.
"It was business—"
"Business ends at my door," Vincent interrupted. "You crossed the line the moment you brought a child into a turf war that doesn't belong to her."
"You think you own this city, Kane?" Viktor laughed hysterically, his voice bouncing off the concrete walls. "You think you're untouchable because you played white knight for a minimum-wage worker? The syndicate—"
"The syndicate exists because I allow it to exist," Vincent cut him off.
He signaled with two fingers.
Marcus stepped forward, dropping a heavy laptop and a thick stack of printed financial ledgers onto the floor beside Viktor’s boots.
"Every wire transfer, every bribe paid to the city council, and every shell company you operated through Sterling’s Bistro," Vincent recited smoothly. "The federal prosecutor already has copies. By Monday morning, your accounts will be frozen, your properties seized, and your men locked away in federal penitentiaries where protection doesn't exist."
Viktor’s defiant expression dissolved instantly into blind panic. "You... you can't do that. That’s state evidence—"
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"It was state evidence," Vincent corrected, turning his back on him. "Now it's my property."
As Vincent walked toward the exit, the heavy metal doors creaked open, letting in the cold night air and the flashing red and blue lights of half a dozen unmarked federal vehicles waiting outside.
