Chapter 2 - The Command
I didn't wait for her to answer. I pulled out my phone and dialed a three-digit speed dial.
"Boss," a deep voice answered on the first ring. It was Silvio, my underboss and the most ruthless logician in Chicago.
"I need a medical transport to a private clinic in Lincoln Park," I ordered. "Quiet. No sirens. I want Dr. Bianchi there waiting. I have a woman suffering from severe malnutrition and physical assault, and a seven-year-old girl."
"Right away. Location?"
I read off the street signs I had seen on the corner. "And Silvio?"
"Yes, Boss?"
"Call a family meeting. The inner circle. At the warehouse on 47th. I want every captain there by midnight. If someone is missing, consider them dead."
"Understood."
I hung up. I looked back at Emma's mother. She was watching me, her eyes wide with a mixture of confusion and desperate, fragile hope.
"My name is Sarah," she whispered.
"Sarah," I said, taking off my heavy, dry overcoat and gently wrapping it around her shivering shoulders. "The ambulance is coming. You and Emma are safe now. No one will ever step foot in this house again."
"They... they said they were your men," she sobbed, clutching the expensive wool coat around herself. "A man named Silas. He had the card. He said if we didn't pay the interest on my late husband's debt, he would take Emma."
Silas.
The name registered instantly. Silas was a mid-level lieutenant in the Marcone family—a desperate, dying crew that we had pushed to the very edges of the city's underbelly years ago. They had been surviving on scraps, but it seemed they had gotten brave enough to start scavenging under my banner.
"Silas," I murmured, the name tasting like ash in my mouth. "He made a very bad business decision."
Within ten minutes, a black, unmarked medical van pulled up to the curb. Two of my trusted, private medics carried Sarah out on a stretcher, with Emma clinging tightly to her hand.
Before she stepped into the van, Emma turned to look at me. The rain was still pouring, plastering her tangled hair to her forehead, but her eyes were no longer hollow.
May you like
"Thank you, Mr. Rocco," she said softly.
"Keep the bike inside, Emma," I replied, a ghost of a smile touching my lips. "The rain is bad for the chains."
