Chapter 6 - The Siege in the White Room
The armored SUV roared through the flooded streets of Chicago at ninety miles per hour.
Tires screamed against the wet asphalt as Arthur took every turn with reckless fury.
The wipers fought uselessly against the downpour.
In the passenger seat, Leo Barnes adjusted the frequency on his tactical radio, trying to re-establish a link with the underground estate.
Only heavy static and the distant sound of shattering glass leaked through the speaker.
Arthur’s knuckles were white against the leather steering wheel.
His jaw was set so hard his teeth threatened to splinter.
He had spent his whole life calculating every move like a grandmaster on a blood-stained chessboard.
Yet Vivien Croft had outplayed his arrogance by striking where he was most vulnerable.
Back at the estate's private medical bunker, the corridor lights flickered between blinding white and emergency crimson.
Two Romano guards lay motionless outside the heavy steel doors, their vests peppered with close-range rounds from silenced submachine guns.
Vivien Croft stepped over their bodies, her pristine ivory bridal coat stained with specks of dark crimson.
Her blonde hair was pulled back into a severe, elegant knot, not a strand out of place despite the slaughter she had just orchestrated.
Behind her were four Croft enforcers dressed in black tactical gear, sweeping every corner with suppressed rifles.
Inside the trauma bay, Dr. Julian Vane stood in front of Chloe’s bed with his trembling hands raised in the air.
His white lab coat was smeared with grease from the air vents where the infiltrators had entered.
Behind him, Chloe was sitting upright on the edge of the mattress.
Her hazel eyes were wide with terror, but she did not weep.
She had wrapped a heavy thermal blanket around her torso, shielding her protruding belly like a maternal fortress.
In her right hand, hidden beneath the folds of the thick wool, she clutched a surgical bone saw she had pulled from Julian’s emergency tray.
Vivien walked into the room with slow, deliberate clicks of her designer heels against the linoleum.
She held a silver compact pistol, keeping it leveled squarely at Dr. Vane’s forehead.
“Step aside, Julian,” Vivien said in a velvety, aristocratically calm voice.
“You served the Romano family well during Arthur’s father's reign, there is no need for your retirement to end in this septic hole.”
Julian did not budge an inch, his voice shaking with age and indignation.
“You are violating the sacred blood code of the Families, Vivien.”
“To strike at a pregnant woman in a sickbed brings a death sentence from the entire High Council.”
Vivien gave a dry, mocking chuckle that echoed off the stainless steel cabinets.
“The High Council only listens to the living, old man.”
“And after tonight, the Croft name is the only name that will exist in this city.”
Without warning, Vivien swung the pistol barrel and pulled the trigger.
The suppressed shot let out a dull thump.
The round grazed Julian’s shoulder, spinning the elderly physician around and slamming him hard into the metal counter before he slid unconscious to the floor.
Chloe gasped, lunging forward, but the cold steel muzzle of Vivien’s gun was suddenly pressed hard against her own forehead.
“Sit back, Henderson,” Vivien hissed, her patrician features contorting into raw hatred.
“Look at you.”
“A thick, common, greasy diner girl who smells like cheap floor cleaner.”
“Arthur was going to give me his empire, his name, and his seat at the top of Chicago.”
“And you threw a few cheap pies at him and thought you could steal my throne?”
Chloe stared straight into Vivien’s icy blue eyes, her own heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped beast.
“Arthur never loved you,” Chloe spoke with an icy clarity that surprised even herself.
“He was disgusted by the very idea of your hands touching him.”
“He told me your family was a nest of diseased vipers, and he was right.”
Vivien’s face twisted into an ugly sneer.
She lowered the gun from Chloe’s temple and rested the cold barrel directly onto the swollen curve of Chloe’s burgundy dress.
“Let’s see if he loves what’s left of you when I take his bastard out of the equation.”
Chloe didn't wait for Vivien’s finger to squeeze the trigger.
With a wild, desperate scream, Chloe drove the heavy steel surgical saw upward from under the blanket.
The serrated metal ripped across Vivien’s forearm, tearing through her ivory coat and slicing deep into her flesh.
Vivien shrieked in agony, dropping the pistol onto the mattress as dark blood spurted across the white sheets.
Chloe lunged forward, grabbing Vivien’s silk lapels and pulling the blonde woman down with all her weight.
They crashed into the bedside table, sending medicine bottles and metal instruments clattering across the floor.
A Croft mercenary raised his rifle to shoot Chloe in the back, but before he could fire, the heavy blast doors behind them exploded inward with the force of high-grade breaching plastic.
The shockwave blew the enforcer ten feet across the room, his skull cracking against the concrete pillar.
Through the rolling cloud of white dust and smoke, Arthur Romano emerged like an archangel of death.
His automatic shotgun roared in the enclosed space.
The remaining three Croft gunmen were cut down in a hail of lead before they could even turn their barrels toward the doorway.
The smell of cordite and blood instantly overwhelmed the sterile scent of the room.
Arthur dropped the empty shotgun, drew his Kimber .45, and crossed the room in two massive strides.
Vivien was scrambling across the bloody floor, trying to reach her dropped weapon with her mangled arm.
Arthur’s heavy leather combat boot came down on her right hand, crushing the bones beneath the sole with an audible crunch.
Vivien wailed, writhing on the tiles, her aristocratic composure completely annihilated.
Arthur didn't even look at her.
He dropped to his knees beside Chloe, who was leaning against the foot of the bed, clutching her stomach and gasping for breath.
“Chloe! Are you hit? Did she shoot you?”
Arthur’s voice was cracked with raw panic, his hands hovering over her body in desperate examination.
Chloe looked up through a curtain of tangled, sweat-drenched hair.
She looked at his frantic, bleeding face, and then down at her intact belly.
“She didn't shoot,” Chloe whispered, her body beginning to shake with post-adrenaline shock.
“The baby... Arthur, I felt him kick.”
“He’s alive.”
Arthur pulled her into his arms with crushing tenderness, burying his face into her neck as heavy, silent tears finally broke past his stone exterior.
“I have you,” he choked out against her skin.
“I swear on my life, you are safe now.”
Beneath his boots, Vivien coughed blood onto the floor, glaring up at them with unrepentant malice.
“Kill me, Arthur,” Vivien whispered with venomous spite.
“My father has already sent the wire transfers.”
“The Five Families have already called an emergency tribunal at the Palmer House.”
“You showed your weakness for this cow, and the Commission will strip you of your crown before dawn.”
Arthur slowly turned his head to look down at his former fiancee.
His eyes were hollow, empty of anger, and filled only with finality.
“Your father is missing a kneecap and currently weeping in a shipping container on the docks, Vivien.”
“And the Commission doesn't strip crowns from men who hold all the cards.”
Arthur signaled Leo, who entered the destroyed room with two fresh Romano soldiers.
“Cuff her,” Arthur said coldly, rising to his feet while keeping Chloe safely wrapped in his left arm.
May you like
“Take her to the Palmer House in her wedding dress.”
“Let the Commission see exactly what treason looks like before I burn the Croft name out of history.”
