Chapter 9 - The Baptism of Fire
The deafening percussion of automatic gunfire echoed beneath the vaulted ceiling of Sacred Heart like rolling thunder trapped in an iron drum.
Splinters of century-old oak pews rained through the air, mixing with shards of stained glass depicting the stations of the cross, sparkling like colored diamonds across the bloody floor.
The lead shooter, a tall mercenary wearing a tactical balaclava and an olive-drab assault vest, stepped forward to clear the main aisle, his rifle aimed squarely at the communion rail.
He never got off another shot.
Dominic stepped out from behind the heavy stone pillar, steadying his Kimber .45 with two hands, his upper body completely still despite the bullets chipping the masonry an inch above his ear.
Crack. Crack.
Two .45-caliber hollow points struck the lead shooter in the upper center chest, punching through the Kevlar seams and lifting him off his boots.
The man collapsed hard onto the flagstones, his assault rifle skittering away across the broken marble.
Before the second operative could pivot his barrel toward the sacristy archway, Ethan Vale rolled from behind the communion rail, raising his short-barreled shotgun.
The blast echoed with a concussive boom that blew out the remaining lower glass panels of the north transept.
The second mercenary was slammed backward into a row of wooden pews, his weapon discharging wildly into the ceiling plaster as he went down.
The remaining two shooters realized the breach had turned into an ambush.
They broke their wedge formation, attempting to retreat toward the heavy oak entrance doors while firing blind bursts over their shoulders.
From the side vestibules, Dominic’s two flanking operators emerged from the shadows like phantoms, their suppressed carbines firing controlled, rhythmic three-round bursts.
The third shooter fell near the baptismal font, lifeless before his body struck the floor.
The fourth man—the one Dominic had designated to survive—panicked, dropping his weapon and lunging for the iron door handle leading to the alley.
Dominic didn't yell.
He raised his pistol with cold, deliberate geometry, tracking the running man’s left shoulder through the drifting gunsmoke.
Crack.
The high-velocity round tore through the operative’s left shoulder blade, smashing the joint and pinning him against the massive oak door.
The man screamed in agony, sliding down the bloody wood until his knees hit the threshold, his right hand clutching his ruined shoulder.
Silence returned to the church.
It was a heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the steady hiss of the autumn rain pouring through the shattered stained-glass windows and the dying groans of the wounded operative at the door.
Father Thomas slowly sat up against the base of the high altar, his cassock covered in gray plaster dust, his hands clutching his wooden rosary as he stared at the carnage filling the house of God.
"God forgive us," the old priest whispered, his eyes welling with tears as he looked at the shattered face of the Virgin Mary lying in pieces on the aisle floor.
"God has nothing to do with what happens in this city anymore, Father," Dominic said, lowering his weapon and thumbing the safety back into place.
He walked down the center aisle, his boots crunching over the carpet of broken glass and spent brass casings.
He stopped over the wounded shooter, who was curled on the floor, weeping with terror, his balaclava soaked in sweat and vomit.
Dominic reached down, grabbed the man by the collar of his tactical vest, and hoisted him up until the operative’s wide, terrified eyes were level with his own.
"Who sent you?" Dominic asked, his voice softer than a whisper, yet carrying the weight of a death sentence.
"Anthony... Anthony told us to burn the sacristy," the man wept, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips.
"He said there was a drive that could hang the whole board."
"He said if you were inside... we were supposed to make sure you never left the building."
Dominic pulled the encrypted drive from his breast pocket, holding the small black rectangular device before the shooter's eyes.
"You see this?"
The man nodded frantically, his teeth chattering with shock.
"This is Anthony’s obituary," Dominic said.
Dominic dropped the man back onto the bloody floor with a heavy thud, then turned to Ethan Vale, who was already inspecting the perimeter for secondary threats.
"Ethan."
"Yes, boss?"
"Call the clean-up team from the South Side docks."
"Have these bodies loaded into an unmarked refrigerated meat truck."
"Deliver all four of them to the front lawn of Anthony’s country estate in Barrington."
"Stack them on his driveway right beside his wife’s imported sports cars."
"Then leave Claire’s cracked leather notebook on his front porch with one single sentence written on the first page."
Ethan’s eyes sharpened.
"What sentence, Dominic?"
"Tell him: The king is coming home for dinner."
Dominic turned back toward the altar, pulling the sealed envelope from his pocket.
He tore the paper open with his thumb, his eyes scanning Claire’s delicate handwriting in the dim, gray light filtering through the broken windows.
The letter was short, written on plain yellow legal paper, dated the night she had walked out of their penthouse on Lake Shore Drive:
Dominic,
If you are reading this, it means you have finally opened your eyes, or I am already in the earth.
I didn't run because I stopped loving you.
I ran because the man who built that empire was slowly devouring the man who gave me his coat in the winter of 2018.
Anthony has been selling our shipping corridors to the Sinaloa syndicate through shell accounts registered under my maiden name.
Vanessa Crane is the syndicate’s financial courier in Chicago.
She didn't sleep with you because she desired you; she slept with you to keep you distracted while Anthony transferred the terminal deeds into their offshore trust.
They never intended to let you keep your crown.
They planned to trigger a federal raid that would lock you away for life, leaving Anthony in command and Vanessa holding the financial keys.
When I discovered the records, Anthony came to my office at the university.
He showed me pictures of a sniper’s crosshairs trained on the back of your head while you walked through the terminal yards.
He told me that if I went to the police, you would take a bullet before I reached the squad car.
And if I stayed with you, he would ensure our baby was stillborn before the autumn arrived.
So I left.
I took the blame, I took your hatred, and I took the cold silence of that miserable apartment on Racine Avenue.
I did it to keep your heart beating, Dominic.
Even if that heart never belonged to me again.
Protect our daughter.
Don't let them turn her into another stone in your fortress.
— Claire.
Dominic stood in the center of the ruined church, the letter trembling violently between his fingers.
The world around him seemed to stop spinning, every breath he took feeling like he was inhaling broken glass and burning phosphorus.
She hadn't abandoned him.
She hadn't stopped loving him.
She had lived in a squalid, freezing apartment for seven months, eating bread and drinking tap water while carrying his child, all to protect him from a sniper’s bullet arranged by his own flesh and blood.
And while she was enduring that hell, he had been drinking eighty-dollar scotch at the top of the city, entertaining the very viper who was helping carve her grave.
A deep, guttural roar tore from Dominic’s throat—a sound of such raw, agonizing, animal torment that Father Thomas crossed himself and fell to his knees in the dust.
Dominic crumpled the letter against his chest, falling to one knee before the ruined altar, his forehead striking the marble step as a torrent of scalding tears broke through his iron facade.
"Claire..." he wept, his massive shoulders shaking with an agony that tore through his soul like an artillery shell.
"Claire... my God... what have I done to you?"
Ethan Vale stood at the entrance of the nave, his head bowed, his hands folded over his shotgun, allowing his employer five minutes of grief in the house of God.
When Dominic finally stood up, his tears were gone.
His eyes were no longer gray; they were the color of cold, polished flint, devoid of humanity, devoid of mercy, devoid of fear.
He smoothed the crumpled letter carefully, placing it back into his breast pocket directly against his heart.
He pulled his secure phone from his coat and dialed Dr. Lin at Mercy Lake Medical.
"Report," Dominic said, his voice as steady and cold as an arctic wind.
"The craniectomy was successful, Mr. Moretti," Dr. Lin’s exhausted voice came through the speaker.
"We removed a twelve-centimeter section of the skull and decompressed the temporal lobe."
"The intracranial pressure has dropped back to twelve."
"Her vitals are stabilizing."
"She is breathing on her own through the tube."
"And the baby?" Dominic asked.
"Mia is gaining temperature," the doctor replied.
"Her cerebral ultrasound showed no expansion of the hemorrhage."
"Both of them are holding on, Dominic."
"They are fighting."
Dominic closed his eyes for a single second, letting out a slow, icy breath.
"Keep two security details outside those doors, Lin."
"I am going to end this war before the market opens tomorrow morning."
Dominic hung up the phone and walked out of the church into the torrential downpour.
"Ethan," Dominic said as he climbed into the back of the armored SUV.
"Call the port directors, the union bosses, and the federal task force commanders."
"Tell them to meet me at the Terminal Four warehouse at ten o’clock tonight."
"And Ethan?"
"Yes, boss?"
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"Bring Anthony from the cold storage unit."
"It's time to show this city what happens when a Moretti forgets his own blood."
