Chapter 5 - The September Storm
The rain in Chicago on the third Thursday of September fell like iron needles.
Inside the bridal suite of St. Jude’s Cathedral, Arthur Romano stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror, staring at his reflection. He wore a black tuxedo, a white silk shirt, and a black bow tie. He looked powerful, imposing, and entirely dead inside.
Leo stepped into the room, holding a crystal glass of bourbon. "Ten minutes, boss. The guests are seated. Malcolm Croft just arrived with his inner circle."
Arthur didn't take the glass. He didn't turn around. "Is the perimeter secure?"
"Tight as a drum," Leo replied. "We have twenty guys posted around the cathedral. The Crofts have fifteen. It's a bloody fortress out there."
"And Chloe?" Arthur asked, his voice low.
Leo hesitated for a fraction of a second. "She's at her apartment, Arthur. My guys reported she hasn't left all morning. She's safe."
Arthur took a deep, painful breath. Safe. That was the lie he kept telling himself. He was selling his soul to the Crofts to buy her safety.
Downstairs, in the grand foyer of the cathedral, the air was thick with the scent of expensive lilies and polished incense. Two hundred of Chicago’s most powerful people—politicians, judges, syndicate bosses, and wealthy elites—sat in the pews, whispering under their breath as the organist played soft, solemn classical music.
Near the altar, on a small velvet-covered table, sat a ancient silver chalice. Beside it was a bottle of dark, vintage red wine, unstoppered, waiting for the traditional matrimonial blessing—a ritual that would legally and symbolically bind the Romano and Croft bloodlines.
Three miles away, in a cramped, damp alley behind a bus stop, Chloe Henderson was running.
Her feet were soaked through her thin leather shoes. Her hair was plastered to her face by the driving rain. Her burgundy dress was drenched, clinging heavily to her six-month pregnant belly. Every step was an agony; sharp, pulling pains shot across her lower back, her stomach tightening in hard, terrifying braxton-hicks contractions brought on by pure terror and physical exhaustion.
“If you step one foot near St. Jude’s Cathedral... I’ll kill you both.”
Vivien’s words echoed in her head with every thumping heartbeat.
For six days, Chloe had tried to stay in her apartment. She had tried to tell herself it wasn't her problem. Arthur had chosen this life. Arthur had abandoned her.
But last night, as she lay in the dark, she felt her baby kick. A firm, insistence push against her palm. And she realized she couldn't let her son’s father be murdered in cold blood. She couldn't let the man she loved—the man who had held her gently in the dark, who had worshiped her curves and eaten her cold soup—be slaughtered by a family of monsters.
Even if he hated her for coming. Even if he never spoke to her again. She had to save his life.
She didn't have a car. Ethan had been detained by two suspicious men sitting in a sedan outside the diner earlier that morning—Croft guards making sure nobody left. Chloe had snuck out through the basement coal chute, crawling through dirt and rain, running three blocks to catch a city bus that broke down halfway to the cathedral.
Now, she was running on foot.
Her lungs burned. Her legs felt like lead. The contraction squeezed her stomach so hard she had to bend double against a brick wall, gasping for air, clutching her baby.
"Just a little further, baby," she sobbed into the dark rain. "Please, hold on. We have to save your daddy."
She forced herself upright and kept moving.
Ten minutes later, the grand iron gates of St. Jude’s Cathedral appeared through the silver sheet of rain.
Four Croft guards stood outside the heavy oak doors, wearing dark raincoats, their eyes scanning the street. When they saw a drenched, pregnant woman staggering up the marble steps, one of them stepped forward, reaching into his coat.
"Hey! Lady, you can't be here—"
Chloe didn't stop. She didn't argue. With the last reserve of her strength, she threw her weight against the heavy iron latch of the cathedral door.
The doors slammed open.
The quartet died.
The wind roared into the holy sanctuary.
And as Chloe looked down the long, red-carpeted aisle, past two hundred frozen guests, she saw Arthur standing at the altar in his black tuxedo.
May you like
He turned his head. His dark eyes locked onto hers.
And as the darkness pulled at the edges of her vision, as her legs finally gave out beneath the weight of her exhausted body and her failing strength, Chloe collapsed onto the cold marble floor, praying her warning wasn't too late.
