Chapter 8 - The War for the South Side
Twenty minutes later, Rhett Moretti received the call.
He sat in his study at the estate, his fingers gripping the heavy leather arms of his chair so tightly the seams groaned.
"We have your girl, Moretti," Leo Castiglione’s voice rasped through the phone speaker. "The old rail yard on 55th Street. Come alone in thirty minutes, or I’ll let her father finish what he started three years ago."
The phone went dead.
Rhett stood up slowly. The aura of cold, absolute lethargy that usually surrounded him was completely gone, replaced by a dark, apocalyptic fury that chilled every man in the room.
Vera and three senior lieutenants stood near the desk, their faces pale.
"Sir," his chief lieutenant, Frank, stepped forward. "It’s an ambush. Leo has at least twenty men waiting at the rail yard. You can't go alone."
"I'm not going alone," Rhett said, his voice flat, heavy, and terrifyingly calm. "Call the entire northern sector. Every soldier, every driver, every gun we have. We are wiping the Castigliones off the map tonight."
"What about the police?" Frank asked.
"Buy them off," Rhett growled, pulling two heavy automatic weapons from his desk drawer. "Tonight, Chicago belongs to me."
Within fifteen minutes, a convoy of ten black SUVs tore through the blinding snowstorm, heading straight for the South Side rail yards.
At the rail yard, inside a massive, rusted train maintenance warehouse, Lena was tied to a wooden chair near an idle freight engine. Her lip was bleeding where Boyd had struck her when she tried to fight back.
Leo Castiglione stood near a burning oil drum, checking his watch, while Boyd paced nervously nearby, taking deep swigs from a flask.
"He won't come," Boyd muttered, his hands trembling. "He's a billionaire crime boss! He won't risk his life for a maid's daughter!"
"Shut up, old man," Leo barked. "Moretti will come. He’s weak for her."
Suddenly, the heavy iron doors of the warehouse blew inward with a deafening explosion!
A wall of fire and shattered steel rained down into the building.
Before the smoke could clear, intense gunfire echoed through the cavernous space. Rhett’s tactical team breached from three different entry points, sweeping through Castiglione’s men with lethal, terrifying precision.
Leo screamed in panic, reaching for his weapon, but a heavy bullet shattered his shoulder, dropping him to the concrete floor.
Boyd dropped his flask, grabbing a rusted knife from his belt and lunging toward Lena, his face twisted in insane desperation. "If I go down, you go with me!"
"Boyd!" Lena screamed, trying to pull her wrists free from the ropes.
A single, thunderous gunshot rang out across the warehouse.
Boyd froze in mid-stride. A neat hole appeared in the center of his chest. He dropped his knife, looked down at his shirt in disbelief, and collapsed onto the cold concrete, lifeless.
May you like
Standing in the doorway through the clearing smoke was Rhett Moretti.
He held a smoking pistol in his dark-gloved hand. His suit coat was torn, his hair messy, his dark eyes filled with a desperate, wild instinct as he locked sight onto Lena.
