Chapter 5 - The Shadow at the Safehouse
The dial tone hummed in Adrian’s ear like the buzz of an angry hornet.
He lowered the phone slowly, staring at the darkened reflection of the city in the floor-to-ceiling glass.
"Adrian?" Marcus asked, his hand resting on the grip of his holstered firearm.
"He told me to ask my father," Adrian said, his voice quiet, hollow, and chillingly controlled.
"Arthur Moretti died in Chicago Memorial seven years ago," Marcus said, trying to anchor reality.
"You held his hand when the life support monitors went flat."
"I watched a monitor go flat," Adrian corrected him, turning around slowly.
"I never checked the doctor’s credentials."
"I never asked for an autopsy because I thought my father had suffered enough after losing Luca."
Ethan sat up on the hospital bed, his eyes darting between the two men.
"If that man is in the city, he knows I came here," Ethan said, panic creeping into his tone.
"He followed me from Kenosha."
"He didn't kill me at the gas station because two highway patrol cruisers pulled in for fuel."
"He’s not going to stop."
Adrian looked at Marcus.
"This building is a glass cage."
"If Samuel Ward has been operating in the shadows for six years, he knows the security grid of Moretti Tower better than we do."
"He designed it," Marcus admitted grimly.
"We move right now," Adrian commanded.
"Get the subterranean armored transport ready."
"We take Ethan to the hunting lodge in Cook County."
Thirty minutes later, an unmarked black SUV slipped out of the delivery tunnel beneath Moretti Tower.
Marcus drove through the pouring rain, avoiding major highways and taking secondary surface streets.
Ethan sat in the rear passenger seat, clutching his bandaged side, while Adrian watched the side mirrors.
Every pair of headlights behind them looked like a threat.
Every dark sedan looked like an executioner's vehicle.
The hunting lodge sat behind ten acres of private, dense timberland outside the county line.
It was surrounded by a ten-foot electrified security fence and monitored by thermal cameras.
Arthur Moretti had purchased the property forty years ago for private business negotiations away from corporate ears.
As Marcus entered the security code at the reinforced iron gate, the perimeter floodlights failed to illuminate.
The forest remained pitch black, shrouded in freezing mist.
"The grid is down," Marcus warned, drawing his weapon and cutting the vehicle’s headlamps.
"Stay inside the vehicle."
Before Marcus could throw the transmission into reverse, a brilliant flare ignited fifty yards ahead in the driveway.
A heavy tactical truck roared out from behind the tree line, ramming the front bumper of their SUV.
The impact threw Adrian against the reinforced door frame as the safety glass cracked into webs.
"Ambush!" Marcus yelled, kicking his door open and firing three rapid rounds into the darkness.
Muzzle flashes illuminated the dripping pine branches like strobe lights.
Adrian grabbed Ethan by the collar of his jacket and dragged him down into the footwell.
"Stay low!" Adrian barked.
Two men in tactical gear with suppressed carbines advanced through the mist toward the SUV.
They moved with military precision, flanking the passenger side.
Marcus engaged the first operative, dropping him into the wet leaves with a center-mass shot.
The second shooter returned fire, shattering the SUV’s rear windshield.
Adrian reached into the glove compartment, pulled out his personal nine-millimeter pistol, and leveled it through the broken glass.
He had spent his youth training on private firing ranges with Luca and Victor.
He squeezed the trigger twice.
The second assailant collapsed backward into the gravel driveway.
Silence returned to the forest, broken only by the hiss of steam from the SUV’s punctured radiator.
Marcus sprinted around the vehicle, checking the fallen shooters.
"Clear!" Marcus shouted through the rain.
Adrian kicked his door open and stepped out into the mud, his gun still raised.
He approached the shooter he had neutralized and dropped to one knee.
The man wore unmarked black combat apparel, but hooked to his tactical vest was a encrypted radio transceiver.
Adrian recognized the small, engraved gold crest on the radio casing.
It was the Moretti family crest.
The radio was linked to a private, closed-loop communications channel reserved exclusively for the family board.
Adrian tore the radio from the vest and pressed the push-to-talk toggle.
Static crackled through the small speaker.
"Operative down," Adrian said into the microphone, his voice dead and cold.
A voice responded immediately from the other end of the frequency.
It was not Samuel Ward.
The voice was older, cultivated, and unmistakably aristocratic.
"Adrian," the voice murmured through the static.
"You always were remarkably stubborn, just like your younger brother."
Adrian felt all the blood rush out of his limbs.
He would recognize that calm, measured cadence anywhere in the world.
It was the voice of Victor Moretti.
The uncle he had grieved for four years.
"Victor," Adrian whispered into the radio, his hand shaking.
"Go home, Adrian," Victor said softly over the speaker.
"Leave the watch in the mud and walk away from this."
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"Luca made his choice eight years ago."
"Don't force me to make the same choice for you."
