Chapter 2 - THE SHADOW OF THE DON
(1,500 words)
The city bus rumbled down Grand Avenue, its tires spraying dirty slush against the curb. I sat near the back, pressing my forehead against the cold window glass, counting the change left in my palm. Two dollars and sixty cents. It was enough for my mother’s bus ride to the clinic, but it meant I would have to skip dinner tonight, and probably lunch tomorrow.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out, hoping it wasn't my manager at Rossi’s telling me I was fired.
Instead, it was a text from the discount pharmacy: Prescription #4092 for Clara Mercer is ready for pickup. Total due: $14.50.
I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath. Fourteen dollars and fifty cents. I was twelve dollars short. My mother’s anti-nausea medication was essential after her chemotherapy sessions; without it, she couldn't keep liquids down. I shoved the phone back into my tote, my mind racing as I tried to figure out who I could borrow money from. I had already exhausted every favor from the other waitresses.
When I stepped off the bus three blocks from our cramped two-room apartment in Pilsen, the late November wind cut right through my thin winter coat. I hurried down the alley, pulling my scarf higher over my chin.
I didn't notice the sleek black sedan parked at the mouth of the alley, its engine idling silently in the shadows. I didn't see the dark tinted windows rolling down an inch as I hurried past.
Inside the back seat of the custom armored Maybach, Adrian Cain sat in immaculate silence.
The ragged coat and mud-stained jeans were gone, replaced by a bespoke charcoal three-piece suit cut from Italian wool. His dark hair was combed back, sharp and pristine, highlighting the cold angle of his jaw and the jagged pale line running through his left eyebrow. On his right pinky ring sat a heavy signet ring carved with the crest of the Cain syndicate—a silver falcon clutching a broken blade.
Beside him, Samuel Bishop, a gray-haired man in his late fifties with sharp blue eyes and a leather-bound tablet, made a final entry into a secure file.
"Her name is Nora Reed, Don Cain," Samuel said, his voice crisp and devoid of emotion. "Twenty-four years old. Works forty-five hours a week as a waitress at Rossi’s. Takes night classes in community college for medical billing. Her mother, Clara, has stage-three breast cancer. They are three months behind on their property taxes, and their landlord filed an eviction notice yesterday morning."
Adrian didn't break his gaze from the alleyway where I had vanished into a rickety wooden staircase. He rested his chin on his steepled fingers, the silver ring glinting under the interior light.
"Her father?" Adrian asked, his voice low and commanding, completely devoid of the rough raspy edge he had used on the street.
"Deceased four years ago," Samuel replied. "Arthur Reed. A union carpenter. Left them with eighty thousand dollars in medical debt after an industrial accident that the insurance company successfully contested. She pays seventy percent of her income toward her mother's care."
Adrian reached out and picked up a brown paper bag resting on the leather seat beside him. Inside was the half-eaten loaf of sourdough bread I had bought him three hours ago, wrapped neatly in paper napkins.
"She gave me her last dollar, Samuel," Adrian said quietly. "She didn't know who I was. She thought I was a ghost on the sidewalk, and she risked her livelihood to tell three of the most powerful heiresses in the city to go to hell."
"A rare creature in this city," Samuel remarked dryly. "However, boss, we have a complication."
Adrian’s eyes narrowed instantly. "Speak."
"Coraline Vane wasn't just being cruel outside the restaurant," Samuel explained, tapping his tablet screen to display a series of encrypted wiretaps. "Her father, Richard Vane, is currently negotiating a fifty-million-dollar waterfront real estate deal with the Moretti family—your primary rivals in the North Side territories. Coraline recognized your scar. She called her father twenty minutes ago. She thinks you are vulnerable, hiding out without your security detail."
Adrian let out a soft, dark laugh that sent a chill through the warm interior of the car. "She thinks the lion is weak because he lies in the grass."
"Precisely," Samuel said. "Vane has dispatched three hitmen from the Moretti crew to find out who you were talking to. They watched you leave in my car, boss. But they also saw Miss Reed defend you. As we speak, a team is moving toward her apartment building. They intend to grab her, bring her in for questioning, and find out what you told her."
The ambient temperature inside the Maybach seemed to plummet ten degrees. Adrian’s dark eyes turned to absolute ice. The relaxed posture disappeared, replaced by the lethal, predatory presence that had made him the undisputed master of Chicago’s underworld by the age of thirty.
"They think they can touch her?" Adrian whispered.
"They believe she is your informant, Don Cain."
Adrian turned his head, watching the second-story window of my apartment light up with a pale yellow glow. He saw my silhouette move past the thin curtains, carrying a tray to my mother's bed.
"Tell Marcus to bring the strike team," Adrian ordered, his voice smooth, quiet, and terrifyingly absolute. "Clear the alley. No noise. No police."
"And the girl?" Samuel asked, hovering his pen over the tablet.
Adrian adjusted his cufflinks, his jaw setting like concrete. "She wanted to protect a homeless man from wolves. Now she's going to learn what happens when the wolf decides to protect her."
Up in my kitchen, I was stirring a pot of thin chicken broth on our ancient gas stove.
"Nora, sweetie?" my mother called weakly from her small bedroom off the kitchen. "Did you manage to get the prescription?"
I closed my eyes, swallowing down the lump of anxiety in my throat, forcing my voice to sound light and cheerful. "The pharmacy was a bit crowded today, Mom! I'm going to run back down after dinner and pick it up. Don't worry about a thing."
"You work too hard, honey," she rasped, her voice thin as paper. "You look so tired."
"I'm fine, Mom. Just a long shift."
I ladled the warm soup into a ceramic bowl and set it on a tray. Just as I turned toward her doorway, a sharp, heavy knock rattled the thin wooden frame of our front door.
I froze. It was nearly seven o'clock at night. We never had visitors.
"Who is it?" I called out, taking a cautious step toward the door.
Silence answered from the hallway. Then, a low, unfamiliar male voice spoke through the wood. "Delivery for Clara Reed. Signed medical supplies from the county clinic."
I frowned. The clinic never delivered supplies at night. I stepped closer to the peephole, pressing my eye against the cold glass.
Outside stood two tall men in heavy dark coats. One of them had his hand buried deep inside his pocket, his knuckles white. The other was looking nervously up and down the dark stairwell.
"I didn't order any supplies," I said, my heart starting to thud heavily against my ribs. "Please leave them by the mailboxes downstairs."
"Open the door, girl," the man with his hand in his coat said, his tone suddenly dropping its polite cover, becoming harsh and metallic. "We just want to ask you a few questions about the beggar you bought coffee for this morning."
Cold terror flooded through my veins. The man from the sidewalk.
How did they know about him? Why were two dangerous-looking men knocking on my door at seven at night because I bought a loaf of bread for a stranger?
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"I don't know what you're talking about," I stammered, backing away from the door, my heels clicking against the linoleum. "I'm calling the police."
Before my fingers could reach my phone on the counter, a loud, splintering crack echoed through the apartment as a heavy boot slammed against the lock.
