Chapter 6 - The Raid on Eighteenth Street
The screen on Marco’s tablet flashed with red telemetry markers over a grainy satellite map of Pilsen.
My chest collapsed inward as if someone had dropped a slab of concrete onto my lungs.
"Caleb is in that apartment alone with my father," I cried out, grabbing Luca’s arm without thinking.
Touching Luca Moretti was an offense that usually cost people their fingers, but he did not pull away.
His forearm beneath the black silk was as rigid as an iron girder.
"Silvio, mobilize strike team Alpha and Beta," Luca barked, his voice slicing through the basement vault like a cleaver.
"I want six intercept vehicles running silent on the Stevenson Expressway within ninety seconds."
"Marco, cut power to the entire four-block grid surrounding Eighteenth Street immediately."
"Blind their comms, kill the streetlights, and jam cellular bands across the South Side sector."
Vanessa spat blood onto the cold floor, letting out a wheezing, broken laugh from her steel chair.
"You're too late, Luca!" she rasped, her eyes wide with hysterical vindication.
"The Detroit crew doesn't take prisoners when they clear a dead drop."
"That useless old cripple and your little brother will have their throats cut before your cars even hit the Dan Ryan."
Luca didn't even look back at her as he drew a custom-machined semi-automatic from under his arm.
"Silvio, leave her secured to the post."
"If we lose the old man, bring a gallon of lye and lock the basement vault from the outside."
Vanessa’s mock laughter evaporated into a shrill, suffocating shriek of terror that bounced off the acoustic panels.
Luca grabbed my wrist with terrifying speed and dragged me toward the subterranean elevator that opened directly into the underground garage.
The heavy hydraulic doors parted, revealing four matte-black armored Cadillac Escalades idling in a row, exhaust rumbling against the low concrete ceiling.
Ten heavily armed men in tactical plate carriers and suppressed short-barrel carbines snapped to attention.
"Get in the back and stay beneath the window line," Luca ordered, shoving me into the passenger cabin of the lead truck.
The leather seats smelled of gun oil, ozone, and cold leather.
The reinforced steel doors slammed shut with the heavy thud of an industrial bank vault.
Tires screamed against the sealed epoxy floor as four vehicles launched out of the subterranean ramp and tore into the midnight drizzle of Lake Shore Drive.
Rain slashed across the tinted glass in frantic streaks, blurring the shimmering lights of the downtown skyline into smudged ribbons of gold and neon.
I gripped the handle above the passenger door, my knuckles turning translucent white.
"My brother doesn't know anything about syndicates or ledgers," I choked out, tears finally burning my eyes.
"He's nineteen years old, Mr. Moretti."
"He dropped out of automotive school because my father couldn't lift a spoon to his own mouth."
"If they hurt Caleb, I swear to God—"
"Nobody is touching your brother, Emma," Luca said, his voice dropping into a register so dark and low it seemed to vibrate the floorboards.
He was leaning forward, methodically checking the chamber of an extended magazine before slapping it into the grip with his palm.
"Arthur Reed was my father’s most trusted craftsman for twenty-two years."
"When the federal grand jury indicted our docks in ninety-nine, Arthur personally welded the vault plates beneath the foundry floor and threw the master blueprints into the blast furnace."
"He never took a penny of bribe money, he never asked for protection, and he never spoke a single syllable to the prosecutors."
"He took his pension, walked away with clean hands, and went to work on freight elevators so you and your brother could grow up outside the bloodline."
"If Detroit or New York thinks they can kick down Arthur Reed's door to rob my house, they will learn tonight that Chicago is still a slaughterhouse."
I stared at him through the gloom of the high-speed cabin.
The ruthless mafia boss portrayed in police dossiers was sitting two feet away, calculating casualty counts with surgical indifference, yet speaking of my broken father with an almost sacred reverence.
"Why didn't my father ever tell me?" I asked, my voice cracking beneath the engine roar.
"Because Arthur knew that knowledge in this city is a death warrant," Luca replied, sliding an extra magazine into his pocket.
"The moment you know where the bodies are buried, you're halfway into the grave yourself."
The speedometer climbed past ninety miles an hour as our motorcade blew through red lights along the desolate industrial corridors of Cermak Road.
Marco’s voice crackled through the radio console on the dashboard.
"Boss, grid blackout initiated in Pilsen."
"All municipal transformers within a mile radius of Eighteenth and Loomis are down."
"Cell towers are dead; local dispatch is receiving reports of a major subterranean power failure."
Luca keyed the microphone clipped to his lapel.
"We go in hot. Rules of engagement are absolute suppression."
"Detroit does not get to negotiate on my concrete."
The Cadillac made a violent, tire-shredding right turn onto Eighteenth Street, cutting its headlights instantly.
The working-class neighborhood of Pilsen was submerged in pitch-black shadow.
The neon signs of taquerias and corner bakeries were dead.
Rain pounded against the cracked asphalt, washing trash into the storm drains.
Halfway down the block, in front of the rundown, three-story brick walk-up where my family lived, three dark SUVs sat with engines running and doors ajar.
Muffled gunshots echoed from the third-floor stairwell, followed by the sound of shattering glass.
My heart stopped beating.
"Dad!" I screamed, lunging for the door handle.
Luca caught me by the collar of my apron with one hand and yanked me down onto the floorboards between the seats.
"Stay down!" he snarled.
The lead Escalade didn't brake.
It accelerated violently, slamming into the rear quarter-panel of the Detroit SUV at forty miles an hour.
Metal crunched with an ear-splitting screech, glass sprayed into the street, and the opposing vehicle was spun ninety degrees into an iron fire hydrant.
Before the smoke could clear, Luca’s rear passenger doors flew open.
Eight men in black body armor spilled onto the wet sidewalk, their weapons chattering in synchronized, suppressed bursts.
Two sentries standing beneath our apartment doorway crumpled onto the concrete before they could draw their weapons.
Luca stepped out into the rain, his overcoat snapping in the wind, holding his weapon with both hands.
I didn't listen to his orders.
May you like
I didn't stay on the floor of the truck.
The moment Luca’s men cleared the front stoop, I scrambled out into the freezing downpour and sprinted straight into the dark, bullet-pocked hallway of my home.
