Chapter 2 - The Shadow over Chicago
By Friday evening, the strange dynamic at Hawthorne Ridge had settled into an impossible routine.
Every afternoon at two o'clock, the heavy oak doors leading to the interior courtyard were opened. Rain or snow, Bruno would lie on a thick, heated orthopedic bed that Adrian had personally ordered from Germany, watching the archway until Emma arrived carrying her small plastic doctor’s kit.
The sight was so absurd that even the hardened security detail—men who carried hidden automatic weapons under their tailored coats—found themselves stopping to watch.
A three-year-old girl in a pink sweater bandaging a two-hundred-pound killing machine’s ears with plastic glitter Band-Aids.
From the second-floor library window, Adrian Mercer watched in silence.
He held a crystal tumbler of neat bourbon in his right hand. Beside him stood Marcus Vance, his chief legal advisor and the man who handled the "public relations" side of Mercer Enterprises.
"The police chief called again this morning," Marcus said, leaning against the mahogany desk, shuffling through a stack of surveillance reports. "The Moretti family is making moves in West Chicago. Don Carmine Moretti is telling the street captains that you’re losing your edge, Adrian. He says you’ve gone soft ever since you pulled your men off the docks."
Adrian took a slow sip of his bourbon, his eyes never leaving the courtyard below. Down in the snow, Emma was currently trying to teach Bruno how to "shake hands." The dog was obliging by placing a paw the size of a dinner plate into her tiny palm.
"Carmine Moretti is an idiot who thinks violence is a strategy," Adrian said coldly. "He relies on fear because he lacks intelligence. Let him talk."
"It’s not just talk, Adrian," Marcus warned, his voice dropping into a serious register. "Word on the street is that Carmine hired a team of freelance contractors out of Detroit. He knows you rarely leave Hawthorne Ridge these days. If he wants to provoke a war, he might try to breach the perimeter."
Adrian turned slowly, his dark eyes locking onto Marcus with the lethal intensity that had made him the most feared man in Illinois for over a decade.
"If Carmine Moretti steps one foot over my property line, Marcus," Adrian murmured, "there won't be a war. There will simply be an absence of the Moretti family."
Marcus swallowed hard, nodding once. "Understood."
"And Marcus?"
"Yes, Boss?"
"Run a full background check on Sofia Carter," Adrian ordered, turning back to the window. "Every bank account, every past residence, every distant relative. I want to know why a woman with a master's degree in accounting from DePaul is working as a live-in maid in my house."
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Marcus looked surprised. "You think she's a plant? A mole for Moretti?"
"No," Adrian said, watching Sofia walk out into the courtyard carrying a thermos of hot cocoa, wrapping a scarf gently around her daughter's neck. "If she were a mole, she would have tried to get close to me, not my dog. She’s running from something. Find out what it is."
