Chapter 8 - The Siege of River North
An hour later, Nadia sat safely in the armored back of a black SUV speeding north toward Lake Shore Drive. Beside her sat Marcus, the lieutenant she had saved weeks earlier, his arm still bandaged from his crash, holding an encrypted satellite radio to his ear.
"The hospital is secure now, Boss," Marcus reported into the device. "We extracted her before Thorne’s second wave hit. She's safe."
"Bring her to the penthouse," Carver’s voice crackled through the speaker, strained and crackling with suppressed fury. "We're sealing the building. Nobody gets in."
When the SUV pulled into the underground parking garage of Carver’s residential tower, the scene looked like a military staging ground. Half a dozen armored vehicles were parked haphazardly, and men in tactical gear were securing the perimeter elevators.
Nadia was rushed up to the penthouse, where Carver was standing over a massive holographic map displayed on his glass coffee table, tracking security feeds across the city.
He looked up the second the elevator doors opened.
When he saw her—hair disheveled, her scrubs stained with grease and blood from the supply room floor—all the color drained from his face for a single, terrifying second.
Carver crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her against his chest so hard she could hear the rapid, heavy thud of his heart.
"Are you hurt?" he demanded, his voice rough and shaking slightly as his hands checked her arms and face for injuries. "Did they touch you?"
"I'm fine," Nadia breathed out, burying her face against his shoulder as the adrenaline finally began to crash, leaving her limbs weak. "I hit one of them with an oxygen tank. I took his gun."
Carver pulled back slightly, staring down at her with a mix of fierce disbelief and profound, undeniable awe. A slow, incredulous smile touched his lips.
"You hit an armed syndicate enforcer with an oxygen tank?"
"He was looking in my direction," she muttered defensively, though a watery laugh escaped her lips.
"You are completely out of your mind, Nadia Reyes," Carver murmured, his thumb gently brushing a smudge of soot from her cheek. "And you are the most dangerous woman in Chicago."
Before he could pull her back into his arms, the lights in the penthouse flickered violently and died.
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The emergency backup generator kicked in three seconds later, bathing the room in an eerie red glow. From the holographic security console, multiple red warning icons flashed simultaneously.
"Boss," Marcus’s voice shouted through the intercom system. "Thorne’s men breached the ground-floor lobby. They’ve cut the primary fiber lines. We're surrounded."
