Chapter 4 - Blood in the Boardroom
The executive boardroom on the top floor of Northwestern Memorial Hospital featured floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Michigan, which stretched out like a sheet of hammered lead beneath the grey August sky.
Aurelio Salcedo sat at the head of the polished mahogany conference table, resting his chin on the gold-headed handle of his ebony walking stick. He was sixty-eight years old, with silver hair combed straight back and a tailor-made Brioni suit that cost more than a family sedan. Two of his personal bodyguards stood by the double doors, their hands crossed in front of their belts.
The door swung open with a soft click.
Cormack walked in. He had washed the smell of the ICU off his hands, but his shirt sleeves were still rolled up to the elbows, exposing the thick, dark tattoos wrapping around his forearms—symbols of the street syndicates he had conquered before he was thirty.
He didn't sit down. He walked straight to the other end of the long table, planted both palms on the wood, and stared down the older mafia patriarch.
"You've grown sloppy, Cormack," Aurelio said smoothly, not even bothering to look up. "Yara called me twenty minutes ago. She was crying. Do you have any idea what it costs a man like me when his only daughter is humiliated in a public hospital lobby over some cheap lounge lizard?"
"Your daughter is alive, Aurelio," Cormack said, his voice level and devoid of warmth. "The woman downstairs is on an ECMO machine because your dock security in South Chicago let a rival crew skim three containers of unregistered sidearms last month, forcing me to spend forty-eight hours cleaning up your mess instead of checking on my private life."
Aurelio’s head snapped up. His dark, hooded eyes narrowed into slits. "You dare shift the blame for your wandering dick onto my logistics chain? That bartender was a temporary distraction, Cormack. A warm hole on a rainy night. You were supposed to cut ties with every piece of trash from Vesper Row the day you signed the engagement papers with my family."
In less than a heartbeat, Cormack was across the table.
Before Aurelio’s bodyguards could even twitch toward their shoulder holsters, Cormack had grabbed the old man by the silk lapels of his Brioni jacket, yanked him straight out of his chair, and slammed him chest-first against the heavy mahogany wood with a force that made the crystal water pitcher rattle.
Royce and the second enforcer intercepted Aurelio’s guards instantly, driving their elbows into the men's solar plexuses and pinning their arms behind their backs before they could clear their leather.
"Listen to me very carefully, old man," Cormack whispered, his face inches from Aurelio’s wide, terrified eyes. "You talk about Brin Holloway like that again, and I won't just cancel the wedding. I will take your cargo ships, I will seize your warehouses in Hammond, and I will feed your entire executive board to the federal prosecutors who have been trying to build a RICO case against you since 2020."
Aurelio’s chest heaved against Cormack’s grip. For a second, a flash of pure, murderous rage crossed the old man's face, followed immediately by the cold realization that Cormack Hale was no longer the hungry street lieutenant he had taken under his wing a decade ago. He was a monster who had outgrown his creator.
"You're... you're making a war over a dying whore," Aurelio choked out.
"She is not a whore," Cormack said, his voice dropping to a terrifying register. "She is the mother of my child. And that child is currently fighting for every breath three floors down. If anyone—*anyone*—from your organization comes within fifty yards of that NICU or tries to pull funding from this hospital, I won't just start a war. I will finish it before breakfast."
Cormack shoved Aurelio back into his chair with enough force to send the heavy leather seat rolling backward three feet.
Aurelio straightened his lapel, his hands shaking slightly with a mixture of humiliation and adrenaline. He looked up at Cormack, smoothing his tie with trembling fingers.
"You think you've won," Aurelio wheezed, adjusting his collar. "You think you can defy the syndicate commission, abandon my daughter, and play family with a dying girl from the slums. But federal agents don't care about your threats, Cormack. And right now, while you're standing here playing guardian angel in a children's ward, the FBI’s Chicago field office is executing a search warrant on your primary data-storage facility in Cicero."
Cormack froze. The oxygen seemed to leave the room.
"What did you say?" Cormack asked.
May you like
Aurelio smiled—a thin, cruel grin that showed too many teeth. "You didn't think I kept all my eggs in one basket, did you? If I go down, Hale, your entire digital ledger goes down with me. Every offshore account, every shell corporation, every name, number, and bribe. Your empire is burning to the ground right now, and there is nothing you can do to save it."
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