Chapter 2 - THE SHADOW ON THE BASEBALL FIELD
By Thursday morning, tension sat over the estate like fog. Elena Harper kept her head down as she dusted the crystal chandeliers in the grand foyer, but her eyes constantly tracked the guards moving along the perimeter. She had spent nine years hiding from the shadow of Chicago's underworld, only to walk straight into its nerve center.
Out on the baseball field, Tommy Reyes was digging his sneaker into the dirt behind third base. He was a sharp kid, hardened by years on the streets, and he noticed things adults overlooked.
"Maya, don't step there," Tommy warned, pulling the little girl back by her oversized jacket.
"Why?" Maya pouted, looking down at a patch of freshly overturned earth near the fence line.
Tommy knelt, brushing away the soft soil with his fingers. Beneath the grass lay a black plastic junction box with heavy wiring running underground, leading directly toward the boundary wall. It wasn't irrigation control. It was a localized signal jammer and an unauthorized audio feed.
"Somebody's listening to the field," Tommy whispered, his eyes widening.
Inside the study, Luca was attempting the unthinkable. With the heavy oak doors locked from the inside, he pushed himself up from the armrests of his wheelchair. His muscles screamed in protest. Pain, sharp and blinding, shot down his thighs as his dormant nerves fired after twelve long years of forced slumber.
His knees buckled immediately, and he slammed hard onto the carpet, gasping for breath. The sweat poured down his forehead, dripping onto the intricate Persian rug.
" Dead things don't try," he muttered to himself, echoing Maya's words.
He dug his elbows into the edge of the desk, pulling his weight up inch by agonizing inch. His legs shook violently, like frail saplings in a hurricane, but he held himself erect for three seconds before collapsing back into the chair. He wasn't dead. He was fighting.
Suddenly, the door handle clicked. Luca cleared his throat, wiped the sweat from his brow, and smoothed down his suit jacket just as Marcus Sterling stepped inside without knocking.
"Luca," Marcus said, his smile polite but hollow. "The captains are getting restless about the shipping yards. They want to know if you're approving the new transit routes."
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Luca looked up, his face an unreadable mask of ice. "The routes stay as they are, Marcus. I don't sign off on changes I haven't reviewed myself."
Marcus’s eyes narrowed slightly, casting a quick glance toward the locked drawer where the medical reports were hidden. "Of course, boss. You always were meticulous. Just don't exert yourself. The doctor says stress worsens your nerve condition."
