Chapter 5 - The Gathering Storm
The Grand Hotel stood thirty stories tall in the heart of Chicago’s financial district, a monument of glass, marble, and stolen money.
Rain streaked the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse ballroom on the top floor. Inside, the room was filled with soft jazz, expensive cigars, and fifty of the most dangerous men on the East Coast. Men in three-thousand-dollar suits sat around heavy mahogany tables, drinking forty-year-old scotch while discussing drug routes, union bribes, and extortion rackets.
At the head of the main table sat Victor Cole.
He was a sleek, handsome man in his late thirties, wearing a tailored navy suit and a diamond-encrusted watch that had belonged to Marcus four days ago. He held a crystal glass in his hand, smiling broadly as he raised it toward his lieutenants.
"To the future of the Cole Organization," Victor announced, his voice smooth as velvet. "Out with the old ways. In with the new."
The men raised their glasses, shouting their approval.
Sitting near the back of the room, holding an ice pack to his shattered jaw, Ray Delgado looked uneasy. He kept glancing toward the heavy oak doors at the entrance of the ballroom.
"What's wrong with you, Ray?" Victor sneered, walking over and slapping his second-in-command on the shoulder. "You look like you saw a ghost."
"I did see a ghost, Victor," Ray mumbled through his broken teeth. "Marcus didn't die in that alley. And that kid... that mutt... they aren't human."
Victor laughed loudly, shaking his head. "You got beaten up by a little girl and a street dog, Ray. It ruined your nerves. Marcus is fish food in the river by now. Relax. Drink your drink."
Down in the underground parking garage of the hotel, a black delivery van pulled silently into a service bay near the freight elevator.
The side door slid open.
Marcus Cole stepped out onto the concrete floor. He wore his tailored black trench coat over his shoulder holster, his dark eyes cold and focused.
Beside him stepped Lily, wearing a dark hoodie, a tactical chest rig holding three spare pistol magazines, and her heavy iron tire iron strapped to her back. Beside her stood Bear, his massive paws making no sound on the smooth concrete.
"The security system on the top floor is on a private network," Lily whispered, pulling a small rugged laptop from her backpack and plugging a cable directly into the hotel's main service junction box. "I'm looping the security cameras on floors twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and thirty now. They won't see us coming on the monitors."
Marcus watched the girl’s hands fly across the keyboard with cold efficiency. "You know, when this is over, you're going to school, kid. A real one."
Lily didn't look up from her screen. "Only if Bear can come to class."
Marcus permitted himself a small, rare smile. "We'll buy the school. Then you can bring whoever you want."
"Access granted," Lily said, closing the laptop with a snap. "The freight elevator is coming down now. We have seven minutes before the automated shift change at the security desk."
Marcus drew his heavy eleven-millimeter pistol, pulling the slide back to chamber a round with a loud, metallic CLACK.
"Seven minutes," Marcus said, looking down at the dog. "Bear. Stay close to the kid."
May you like
The mastiff gave a single, low huff of agreement.
The heavy steel doors of the freight elevator opened with a soft chime. The three of them stepped inside, ascending straight toward the penthouse floor where a traitor was celebrating a stolen throne.
