Chapter 3 - A Contract Written in Blood Money
Elena's apartment sat on the third floor of a crumbling brick walk-up above an auto repair shop in Pilsen.
The radiator clanked every twenty minutes like an iron hammer hitting an anvil.
She sat at her wobbly kitchen table under the glare of a bare yellow bulb, disassembling a Glock 19 down to its firing pin.
Cleaning the steel was the only ritual that kept the screaming panic in her skull from spilling over.
Seventy-five thousand dollars.
She had twenty-four hundred in a coffee can beneath the floorboards and three hundred in her bank account.
A soft, heavy rap on her reinforced wooden door broke the rhythm of her thoughts.
Three rhythmic knocks, followed by two flat taps.
Elena didn't ask who was there; she simply slipped the barrel back into the slide, locked the action, and chambered a nine-millimeter round without making a sound.
She moved against the wall, leveling the muzzle at chest height through the wooden door panel.
"Miss Vance," a deep, aristocratic voice resonated from the corridor. "If I intended to breach your apartment, I would not have knocked on the door."
Elena recognized that gravelly, cultured cadence immediately.
The man from the Maxwell Street market.
She kept the gun leveled, sliding the deadbolt back with her left hand while keeping her elbow locked.
"The lock is open," Elena called out flatly. "Step inside with your hands visible, or I will put two rounds through your breast pocket."
The door swung open smoothly on its hinges.
Carmine Duca stepped into the cramped, unheated hallway of her apartment, filling the narrow space with his imposing presence.
He wore a black cashmere overcoat that cost more than six months of her delivery wages.
Behind him stood Dante, whose eyes immediately locked onto the barrel of Elena's Glock without a shred of surprise.
"Close the door, Dante," Carmine instructed smoothly, walking into the kitchen as if he owned the building.
He looked at the chipped linoleum, the stacks of unopened bills on the counter, and the smell of cheap tea brewing on the stove.
"I told you on the street, mister," Elena said, stepping back to maintain an eight-foot defensive perimeter. "I don't play mob games."
"Put the weapon away, Sergeant Vance," Carmine said, pulling out a rickety wooden chair and sitting down without asking.
Elena froze, the steel of her pistol suddenly feeling heavy in her grip.
Nobody in Illinois knew that rank.
Nobody in this hemisphere was supposed to have access to that file.
"Who do you work for?" she demanded, her thumb pressing hard against the safety selector.
Carmine did not flinch; he merely placed a thick leather briefcase onto the stained tabletop.
"I work for the Duca family," Carmine stated, crossing his long legs. "And right now, Miss Vance, I am the only man in North America who can save Leo's life."
At the mention of her brother's name, the air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Elena's eyes went predatory, her muscles tensing for an explosive strike.
"If you touch him, I will carve you into pieces from your throat to your belt," she whispered with savage conviction.
"I have no interest in harming a sick boy," Carmine replied, his dark eyes unblinking and utterly steady.
He unlocked the brass latches of the briefcase with a crisp double click.
He flipped the lid open to reveal neat stacks of banded hundred-dollar bills, alongside a signed medical transfer agreement bearing the seal of the Mayo Clinic.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash," Carmine said, gesturing to the green paper.
"And this transfer document moves Leo to a private suite in Rochester by tomorrow morning at dawn."
"His experimental therapy will be overseen by Dr. Jeffrey Vance—no relation to you, but the leading nephrologist in the Western Hemisphere."
Elena stared at the money, her heart pounding against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"What is the blood price?" she asked, her voice cracking slightly under the unbearable weight of hope and suspicion.
"You think I want an assassin," Carmine said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the laminate wood.
"You're a mob boss," she countered. "Men like you don't hand out quarter-million-dollar charity checks to couriers."
"I don't need an assassin, Elena; I have plenty of men who know how to pull triggers," Carmine said coldly.
"I need a ghost who understands tactical discipline and can read a betrayal before it happens."
"Inside my syndicate, a rot has taken root."
"My uncle, Salvatore Duca, is quietly negotiating with the Marcone syndicate from Detroit to carve up our southern shipping docks."
"Next week, the Midwest Commission gathers at my estate in Lake Forest for the annual summit."
"Salvatore intends to strike during the council, but he has bought off half of my perimeter security team."
"I cannot trust my own guards to search my house."
Elena frowned, lowering the pistol slightly, though her finger remained glued to the trigger guard.
"You want me to act as your inside muscle?" she asked.
"I want you to be my personal executive shadow," Carmine clarified.
"You will wear a suit, stand three paces behind my right shoulder, and observe every person who enters my sightline."
"If a weapon is drawn, you neutralize the shooter."
"If an ambush is laid, you extract me and my eight-year-old niece, Sofia."
Elena looked from Carmine's unwavering eyes down to the medical transfer forms with Leo's name printed at the top.
She knew what entering this world meant; once you step inside a syndicate's inner circle, blood never washes off completely.
"If I sign on, Leo moves tonight," Elena demanded, her voice hard as bedrock.
May you like
"Dante is already outside the county hospital with an executive medical transport team," Carmine answered without a moment's hesitation.
"Give the word, Sergeant, and your brother gets to live."
