Chapter 7 - The Last Mistake of the Past
It would be nice to say that after the greenhouse incident, everything was peaceful. But in Chicago, the past has a funny way of refusing to stay buried.
When I was twelve, David Sterling returned.
He didn't serve his ten years in Alaska. He had managed to escape the processing plant, hitchhike his way across Canada, and sneak back into the city.
He wasn't a man anymore; he was a walking ghost consumed by vengeance. The cold had hardened him, and the hatred for my mother and Vincent Kane had driven him completely insane.
He knew he couldn't touch Vincent directly. Vincent was too heavily guarded.
But Clara and Rory Carter? We were the soft targets. We were the supposed weaknesses in the armor of the Iron Boss of Chicago.
It was late December. The snow was falling in thick, heavy sheets, burying the city in white. Mom and I were closing up the café late after a private catering event.
Marcus was supposed to be watching us, but Sterling had orchestrated a distraction—a firebomb at one of Vincent’s warehouses across town—drawing the heavy security away.
We walked out the back door into the dark, freezing alley.
“Hand over the keys, Clara,” a raspy, frostbitten voice echoed.
Sterling stepped out from behind a dumpster. He held a rusted, heavy revolver, pointing it directly at my mother’s chest. He looked like a nightmare—emaciated, missing teeth, his eyes wide and manic.
Mom pushed me behind her instantly. “David. Please. Put the gun down.”
“You ruined me!” he screamed, his finger twitching on the trigger. “I lost my restaurant! I lost ten years of my life freezing in the dark! Now, Kane is going to know what it feels like to lose something he cares about.”
He cocked the hammer.
I screamed. Mom closed her eyes, bracing for the impact.
BANG.
The gunshot deafened me. The sound echoed off the brick walls of the alley, ringing in my ears like a siren.
But Mom didn't fall.
Instead, David Sterling dropped the gun, staring in absolute shock at the blooming red stain spreading across his own shoulder. He collapsed to the snow, howling in pain.
At the end of the alley, standing in the swirling snow like an avenging angel, was Vincent Kane.
He held a silenced pistol in his right hand. Smoke drifted lazily from the barrel.
He hadn't been drawn away by the distraction. He had known.
Vincent walked slowly down the alley, the snow crunching beneath his expensive leather shoes. He stopped over Sterling, looking down at him with absolute, terrifying apathy.
“I told you once, David. You don't touch what doesn't belong to you.”
“K-Kane,” Sterling gurgled, clutching his bleeding shoulder. “Please...”
Vincent looked up at my mother, who was shaking violently, shielding me.
“Cover her eyes, Clara,” Vincent commanded softly.
Mom turned me around and pressed my face firmly into her thick winter coat, burying my ears in the fabric.
I didn't see what happened next.
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But I heard a second, muffled shot.
And then, I heard absolutely nothing but the wind.
