Chapter 8 - THE ROOF OVER OAK STREET
The cold night air whipped my hair across my face as I pushed open the heavy iron door leading out onto the flat gravel roof of the Oak Street apartment building.
The city skyline of Chicago stretched out before me in a glittering expanse of neon and steel, framed by the dark, churning waters of Lake Michigan in the distance.
I pulled my wool coat tighter around my shoulders, shivering slightly—and not just from the autumn chill.
"I knew you'd come."
I spun around.
Standing near the edge of the roof, framed by the amber glow of a towering billboard, was Sloane Mercer.
She wasn't wearing her designer red ballgown or her diamond necklace anymore. She wore a dark trench coat, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, her face pale and drawn. But the malicious triumph in her eyes was sharper than ever.
"Sloane," I said, my voice steady despite my racing heart. "What are you doing here? How did you get past the guards downstairs?"
Sloane let out a harsh, bitter laugh, taking a slow step toward me. "Guards? Those thugs are loyal to Nico because they think he’s invincible. They don't realize that empires are built on paper, not muscle."
She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small, heavy object—a silver-plated USB flash drive.
"You think Nico won on Friday night?" Sloane sneered, holding up the drive. "He humiliated me in front of thirty-six of the most powerful people in this state. He threw away five years of planning over a rusted cafeteria lunchbox and a peasant housemaid."
"You tried to steal from the foundation and evict forty families," I countered, stepping my ground. "Nico saw the truth."
"Nico is blind!" Sloane shrieked, her voice echoing over the rooftop wind. "And by tomorrow morning, he won't just be blind—he'll be behind bars. This flash drive contains every encrypted offshore routing number, every unredacted ledger, and every direct wire transfer linking the De Luca Foundation to the syndicate's dock operations over the last decade."
My blood ran cold. "You stole the master archives?"
"I downloaded them before security locked the servers," Sloane smiled triumphantly. "And right now, my uncle Arthur is uploading them directly to the Department of Justice grand jury. There's no stopping it, Rachel. The warrant is signed. The federal marshals are already on their way to arrest him."
She took another step closer, raising her hand—and before I could react, she hurled the silver flash drive off the edge of the roof into the dark alleyway below.
Clatter.
It vanished into the concrete abyss.
"Why did you do that?" I gasped.
"Because I don't need the drive anymore," Sloane whispered, a terrifying, unhinged smile spreading across her lips. "I already emailed the encrypted payload to three federal prosecutors with a timed release set for 6:00 AM. And as for you..."
She reached into her coat pocket again.
This time, the metallic click of a small, concealed firearm echoed ominously in the quiet night air.
"You've been a thorn in my side since the day you started working in that house," Sloane hissed, leveling a small black pistol directly at my chest. "Let's see if your mob boss boyfriend can save you from a seven-floor fall."
Before I could scream, the heavy iron roof door flew open behind us with a deafening bang.
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"Drop the gun, Sloane."
Nico De Luca stepped out onto the gravel roof, his dark coat billowing in the wind, his eyes blazing with a fury that could melt steel.
