Chapter 3 - Blood in the Hallway
The instinct honed by a lifetime at the top of the underworld took over in a fraction of a second.
I drew my Sig Sauer, shoved Nora behind the heavy oak desk, and kicked my office door open an inch.
In the hallway, smoke was curling from a shattered glass display case. Two men in dark tactical gear, faces covered by black balaclavas, were sweeping down the corridor, checking classroom doors with military precision. They weren't low-level thugs from the South Side; they moved like professional contract killers—clean, coordinated, and lethal.
The West Side crew.
They had found the connection. They knew the ledger existed, and they had traced the money straight to Harbor House.
“Stay down,” I murmured to Nora, slipping out into the corridor.
The first operative rounded the corner twenty feet away, his submachine gun raised. He didn't even have time to register my presence before my first round caught him square in the center of his tactical vest, dropping him instantly to the linoleum floor.
The second operative fired blindly down the hall, plaster exploding from the wall inches from my head. I dove behind a heavy wooden storage crate, returning fire with two calculated shots that silenced his weapon permanently.
Silence descended on the hallway once more, broken only by the whimpering of children hiding in the back classroom.
“Julian!”
Nora stumbled out of the office, her face pale as she stared at the two bodies on the floor. Then her eyes widened in absolute terror. “The back courtyard! Lily is out there painting with the other kids!”
My heart hammered against my ribs—a feeling I hadn't experienced since I was a boy dodging rival hit squads in the alleyways of Cicero.
I sprinted down the hall, bursting through the rear exit into the fenced courtyard.
The morning sun beat down on a playground littered with plastic toys and a bright yellow slide. In the center of the sandbox sat Lily, wearing her yellow raincoat, holding a wooden paintbrush as if nothing in the world was wrong.
Standing ten feet away from her, lowering a silenced pistol, was a third operative who must have breached the rear perimeter.
“Hey,” I said.
The man spun around, lifting his weapon toward my face.
He never got the chance to pull the trigger. A high-caliber crack echoed from the brick wall behind me as Vance—who had ignored my order to stay in the car and scaled the back fence—put a bullet straight through the operative’s chest.
The man collapsed into the sand, kicking up a small cloud of dust.
Lily blinked, looked up from her sandbox, and slowly set her paintbrush down. She stood up, brushed sand off her white dress, and walked right past the dead man without a single sign of fear.
She walked straight up to me, reached out her tiny hand, and slipped her fingers into mine.
“You’re loud today, Mr. Quiet,” she whispered, looking up with those unmistakable green eyes—my father’s eyes, Claire’s eyes, our eyes.
May you like
I dropped to one knee, wrapping my arm around her frail shoulders, pulling her so tight against my chest I could feel her steady, innocent heartbeat.
“We’re leaving, Lily,” I told her, my voice thick with a rage so cold it burned. “We’re going home.”
