Chapter 4 - The Shadow of Leo
The mahogany study felt like a cage as I paced the Persian rug, listening to the relentless Chicago rain drumming against the glass.
Every logical thought told me to run, but the compound was surrounded by twenty-foot security walls and armed guards.
My brother had been manipulated into the crosshairs of the city’s most dangerous criminal organization.
The door clicked, and Frankie rolled Desmond into the room, stepping backward and shutting the heavy doors behind him.
Desmond remained motionless in the center of the room, staring at me with terrifying stillness.
The baclofen had begun to smooth out his muscle tone, but his mental focus was sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel.
“Talk,” Desmond commanded, the word dropping between us like an iron anvil.
I backed against the cold glass of the window, crossing my arms to hide the shaking of my hands.
“The blue Honda Civic parked at your front gate belongs to my brother, Leo,” I confessed, my voice trembling despite my best efforts.
“He borrowed my savings to buy it at an auction last spring.”
“He has a shamrock tattoo on his right knuckle from our father’s heritage.”
Desmond’s jaw shifted, his hands gripping the rubber tires of his chair until his knuckles turned pure white.
“You were sent here to finish what the bomb started,” he whispered, his tone dangerously calm.
“No!” I cried out, stepping away from the glass.
“I did not even know who you were until the registry assigned me your case!”
“Leo is twenty-two years old, Desmond.”
“He is an idiot who gambles on illegal street races and owes money to loan sharks across Cook County.”
“If he delivered that pouch, he was a blind courier who didn’t know what was inside!”
Desmond let out a low, humorless laugh that held no joy, only cold bitterness.
“A blind courier who helped blow my spine apart and put me in this chair for the rest of my life?”
“Do you know what it felt like when the floor of my car vaporized beneath my feet, Nora?”
“Do you have any idea what it is like to wake up with your spinal cord severed while your empire rots from the inside?”
“I know what it looks like!” I yelled back, tears of frustration stinging my eyes.
“I have spent twelve days cleaning your skin, managing your waste, and catching your limbs when they spasm out of control!”
“If I wanted you dead, all I had to do was inject fifty units of concentrated potassium chloride into your IV line during the first night!”
“You would have gone into cardiac arrest within three minutes, and the autopsy would have labeled it a pulmonary embolism caused by your trauma!”
Desmond went rigid, his eyes boring into mine as he processed the clinical reality of my statement.
He knew medical lethality; he knew how easy it would have been for a rogue nurse to kill him without leaving a trace.
The heavy silence stretched between us, thick with unresolved violence and undeniable truth.
“Where is Leo now?” Desmond asked softly, the quietness of his voice far more dangerous than a shout.
“I don’t know,” I breathed, wiping a rogue tear from my cheek.
“He stopped answering my phone calls four days ago.”
“He told me he found a lucrative logistics gig moving auto parts from a warehouse down in Cicero.”
Desmond’s eyes narrowed slightly as he caught the detail.
“Cicero?” he repeated.
“The auto parts depots on Cicero Avenue belong to Vance Logistics.”
The name hung in the air between us like poisonous smoke.
Julian Vance had spent the last three months trying to convince Desmond to hand over operational control of the Cicero distribution routes.
If Julian had used a desperate kid to execute the dead drop, Julian was not just Desmond’s cousin; he was the architect of his destruction.
Desmond slowly rotated his chair toward his desk and opened the lower drawer with a brass key.
He did not pull out a weapon; instead, he pulled out a file folder filled with financial balance sheets and surveillance stills.
“Julian was at my dinner table two hours before my car exploded,” Desmond said, his voice dropping into a dark, hollow timber.
“He was the one who recommended I take the Mercedes instead of the armored Suburban.”
Desmond looked up from the papers, his blue eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made the breath catch in my chest.
“Your brother is a liability, Nora.”
“Julian will eliminate him the moment he realizes the interrogation down in the cellar did not go according to plan.”
“Desmond, please,” I pleaded, taking a step toward him, dropping onto my knees beside his chair.
“Leo is the only family I have left.”
“He is stupid, but he is not a murderer.”
Desmond reached down and did something he had never done before: his rough, calloused fingers gently touched my jawline.
His thumb brushed away the moisture on my cheek, his touch surprisingly gentle for a man whose name terrified the city.
May you like
“If your brother delivered that detonator under Julian’s orders, Julian will have him silenced before tomorrow night,” Desmond said quietly.
“Which means you and I are going to find him first.”
