Chapter 12 - The 3:00 AM Call and the Blueprint of a New Skyline
Back in the River North loft, the chemical smell of the fire extinguisher had been partially cleared by a pair of industrial air scrubbers Marcus had installed hours earlier.
The scorched patch on the floorboards had been covered by a heavy wool rug, and the broken window was temporarily sealed with a thick sheet of transparent acrylic glass.
Cara Vitali sat at the massive drafting table, a steaming mug of tea cooling beside her right hand, her eyes tracing the delicate pencil lines of the municipal terminal blueprint.
She hadn't gone to sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, she heard the glass shatter and smelled the gasoline.
Ring.
Her cell phone buzzed softly on the wood.
She picked it up immediately. "Vito?"
"Are you awake?" his voice came through the speaker—low, steady, and carrying no trace of the violence that had just consumed the South Side docks.
"I can't sleep," she admitted, pulling her knees up to her chest in the oversized office chair. "Every shadow in this loft looks like a shadow with a bottle in its hand."
"The shadows have been permanently removed, Cara," Vito said quietly. "Dominic Russo has retired from the Chicago commission. Permanently."
Cara closed her eyes, the breath rushing out of her lungs in a long, shuddering sigh. "What did you do?"
"I handled a zoning dispute," he replied smoothly. "The South Side properties are currently undergoing emergency demolition. By next week, the city will be reviewing proposals to turn those docks into public parks."
"You destroyed an empire over a broken window," she whispered, half-in-disbelief, half-terrified by the absolute scale of his devotion.
"I protected a masterpiece," Vito corrected. "How is the terminal redesign coming along?"
Cara looked down at the drafting paper, where the grand Beaux-Arts arches of the 1912 railway station seemed to spring to life beneath her pencil. "It's... it's coming together. The historical preservation board is going to love the floating sub-floor idea. It preserves the iron columns without compromising modern safety codes."
"Good," Vito said. "Because I have an appointment with the mayor tomorrow morning at nine to review the preliminary submissions. I told him our chief architect would be presenting the project in person."
Cara sat straight up in her chair. "Wait—me? In front of the mayor? Vito, I haven't worn a proper suit in three years, let alone presented a multi-million-dollar municipal development proposal!"
"You are a brilliant architect, Cara. The mayor is a career politician who understands numbers and preservation," Vito said, a warm, unmistakable note of amusement touching his voice. "And more importantly, he knows who owns the mortgage on his vacation home in Lake Geneva. You will do brilliantly."
Cara laughed—a genuine, bubbling sound that finally chased the last remnants of fear out of the loft. "You really do own this entire city, don't you?"
"Only the parts that matter," Vito murmured. "Open your door, Cara."
She frowned, her grip tightening on the phone. "My door? It's three in the morning."
"Open it," he repeated softly.
Cara stood up from the drafting table, walked across the wide-plank oak floor, and unlocked the heavy wooden entrance of the loft.
She pulled it open.
Vito Moretti stood in the dimly lit hallway.
He had discarded his coat; his white shirt was slightly unbuttoned, his dark hair ruffled by the wind off the river, and in his right hand, he held two paper cups of terrible, midnight-shift diner coffee from the all-night spot down on Grand Avenue.
"You missed dinner," Vito said, stepping across the threshold and holding out one of the paper cups. "And I figured an architect working on a municipal terminal required appropriate fuel."
Cara stared at him for a second, then took the coffee cup, a soft, helpless smile spreading across her face.
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"You are completely impossible, Vito Moretti."
"So I've been told," he replied, walking past her into the warm, amber-lit expanse of the loft, his world finally aligning precisely where it belonged.
