Chapter 2 - Five Minutes to Midnight in the Windy City
At 8:53, the kitchen of The Obsidian was a war zone of copper pans, screaming line cooks, and the sharp scent of roasted garlic and truffle oil.
Evelyn slammed her empty tray onto the stainless-steel prep table, her chest heaving as if she had just sprinted across the Dan Ryan Expressway. Her palms were slick with cold sweat. What had she just done? She had inserted herself between the apex predator of the Chicago underworld and an elite wet-work squad hired by old-money bluebloods.
“Hey! Carter!” the expediter barked, shoving a heavy ceramic plate of seared duck toward her. “Table Nine is waiting! Move!”
She grabbed the tray, her mind racing. If Lorenzo ignored the note, he’d walk straight into the north corridor and get cut to ribbons by crossfire. If he believed her, the entire dining room was about to turn into a slaughterhouse anyway. Either way, she needed to get out. She needed to grab her jacket from the staff locker in the basement, slide out the loading dock alley, and catch the 9:15 CTA bus back to Cicero before her world burned down.
She took three steps toward the dining room doors when the first muffled thump vibrated through the foundation.
It wasn't a gunshot. It was a localized breach charge blowing the electronic mag-locks off the reinforced service doors on the north side of the building.
Screams erupted from the front of the house. The crisp, polite murmur of Chicago’s elite dissolved instantly into animal panic. Crystal glassware shattered against marble as diners dove under tables.
Evelyn dropped her tray. The ceramic plate smashed into a hundred expensive shards, duck meat sliding across the tiled floor.
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“Active shooter! Get down!” someone roared from the main dining room.
Evelyn didn’t get down. She bolted for the back service stairs, her instincts screaming survival. But as she yanked the heavy fire door open, a gloved hand shot out from the shadows, clamping around her mouth with the iron grip of a hydraulic press, and dragged her bodily into the darkness.
