Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE ON WELLS STREET
"Down!" Lorenzo roared.
He shoved Evelyn’s head into the footwell just as the twelve-gauge boomed inside the concrete tunnel.
The ballistic glass of the passenger window didn't shatter, but it spiderwebbed into a blinding white web of pulverized polycarbonate with a sound like a thunderclap.
Evelyn screamed as the heavy Suburban lurched violently to the left.
"Hold the wheel, Dante!" Lorenzo ordered, bracing one hand against the leather headrest while drawing his pistol with the other. "Ram the pillar!"
Dante didn't brake. He jerked the heavy SUV straight across the right lane, slamming three tons of armored steel into the front quarter-panel of the attacking sedan.
Metal screeched against metal in a shower of orange sparks.
The sedan lost traction on the slick subterranean pavement, fishtailing sideways before wrapping its hood around one of Lower Wacker’s massive green steel support columns at seventy miles an hour.
The second sedan hit its brakes to avoid the wreckage, spinning out into the oncoming lane as Dante floored the gas and shot up the LaSalle Street exit ramp into the cold night air.
Evelyn stayed wedged on the floorboards until the SUV leveled out, her hands pressed over her ears, her heart hammering against her ribs.
Slowly, Lorenzo reached down, gripped her beneath her arms, and lifted her back onto the leather seat.
His face was inches from hers in the dim cabin light. A fresh trickle of blood ran from his split palm down his wrist, staining the white collar of her waitress blouse where he held her.
"Breathe, Evelyn," he said, his voice startlingly calm. "Look at me. The glass held."
She stared at the white crater in the window two inches from where her temple had been. "They weren't shooting at your side of the car," she whispered, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. "That car pulled up on the right. They were aiming at me."
Lorenzo’s thumb brushed a tiny fleck of upholstery dust from her cheek before he drew his hand back.
"Gilbert told them you were still at the table when the ambush started," Lorenzo said grimly. "And Celeste saw me pull you down. Right now, whoever is running this operation thinks you knew about the hit before it happened."
"I didn't know anything until I saw her phone!"
"I know that," Lorenzo said. "Because if you were part of their crew, you wouldn't have used a cheap pen to ruin my life's most expensive dinner."
Almost despite herself, a shaky, hysterical breath escaped Evelyn’s lips. "You're welcome, by the way."
A faint, lethal shadow of a smile touched the corner of Lorenzo’s mouth. "I haven't paid the tip yet."
Ten minutes later, Dante cut the headlights and coasted to the curb on a quiet, tree-lined block of brownstones near Wells Street in Lincoln Park.
Gilbert’s second-floor apartment lights were blazing behind half-drawn Venetian blinds.
"Wait in the truck," Lorenzo told Evelyn.
"No," Evelyn said, grabbing his wool sleeve before he could open the door. "Gilbert has known me since I started at The Obsidian. He got me that job when I was two weeks from eviction. If he sees two mafia enforcers coming up his stairs, he'll shoot through the door or jump out the back. If he sees me, he'll hesitate."
Lorenzo looked down at her hand on his sleeve. "And if he doesn't hesitate?"
"He had a chance to let me die at Table Four tonight, and he tried to send me out the front elevator first," she said firmly. "Let me walk up the steps with you."
Lorenzo studied her for three seconds, weighing the risk. "Stay behind my right shoulder. If I drop my hand, you hit the floor and don't look up."
They climbed the sandstone stoop quietly. The downstairs vestibule door wasn't even latched.
Upstairs, the front door to Apartment 2B stood two inches ajar.
Lorenzo pushed the door open with the barrel of his nine-millimeter, stepping inside first while keeping Evelyn shielded behind his broad back.
The apartment smelled of stale coffee and cedar closets. Drawers had been yanked out of an antique sideboard and dumped across the Persian rug. Two open suitcases lay half-packed on the sofa.
"Gilbert?" Evelyn called out softly.
From the small kitchen at the rear came the sound of a chair scraping against linoleum.
They rounded the corner.
Gilbert Vance sat slumped at his dinette table, his white restaurant shirt soaked in dark crimson across the stomach. One hand pressed a dish towel weakly against the wound; the other clutched a silver rosary wrapped tightly around his knuckles.
Histhirty-thousand-dollar Patek Philippe watch was still on his wrist. Whoever had shot him hadn't come to rob him.
"Gilbert!" Evelyn gasped, rushing forward and dropping to her knees beside his chair. She pressed her hands over his on the blood-soaked towel. "Call an ambulance! Lorenzo, call 911!"
"Too late for that, Evie," Gilbert wheezed, a thin red bubble forming at the corner of his lips. His pale eyes fixed on her face with haunting clarity. "They sent a cleaner... ten minutes after I left the restaurant. Because you didn't die at Table Four."
Lorenzo stepped to the kitchen window, checking the dark alley below before turning back to the dying man. "Who gave the order, Gilbert? Arthur Vane or Celeste?"
Gilbert let out a wet, rattling laugh. "You think Celeste takes orders from her father? Arthur had a stroke two months ago... Celeste has been running the family trusts. And she wasn't working alone."
Gilbert’s trembling fingers caught Evelyn’s wrist with sudden, desperate strength.
"Evie... I'm sorry," he whispered, tears cutting tracks through the gray sweat on his cheeks. "Five years ago... at Pier 9... your dad came to me when he found the fentanyl crates. He thought I was an honest customs clerk. I was drowning in my daughter's hospital debt... I called Vane’s partner instead of the Coast Guard."
Evelyn felt the kitchen floor tilt beneath her knees. "You sold my father out? You got me a job at The Obsidian and watched me scrub tables every night knowing you killed my dad?"
"I got you that job to keep an eye on you... to pay penance," Gilbert choked out, his grip slipping. "And because... Danny didn't die on Pier 9 that night."
Evelyn stopped breathing.
Even Lorenzo went utterly still.
"What did you say?" Evelyn whispered.
"Danny had a copy of the port manifest and a recording," Gilbert gasped, his eyes rolling toward the ceiling as his chest hitched. "He used the swallow key... hid the original drive before they caught him. Celeste’s partner couldn't kill him until Danny gave up the location... and Danny never broke."
"Who is Celeste’s partner?" Lorenzo demanded, leaning over the table, his voice like cold iron. "Look at me, Vance! Which underboss betrayed my family at Pier 9?"
Gilbert’s head lolled toward Lorenzo.
"The one who gave Celeste your mother's engagement ring last week," Gilbert whispered, his eyes glazing over as he pressed the silver rosary into Evelyn’s bloody palm. "Check the nursery... at St. Jude’s..."
Gilbert’s chest rose once more, shuddered, and went still.
In the dead silence of the kitchen, Evelyn looked down at the silver rosary in her hand. Hangings from the cross wasn't just a crucifix—it was a tiny silver medal engraved with the same flying swallow emblem as the brass key 412 from her father’s watch.
And Lorenzo was staring at the wall behind Gilbert’s table, his face draining of all color.
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"Lorenzo?" Evelyn whispered, terrified by the look in his eyes. "Who gave Celeste your mother's ring?"
"My uncle," Lorenzo said, his voice hollow and lethal. "Marco Moretti. The man currently guarding my six-year-old nephew at my estate."
