Chapter 1 - Shadows on State StreetThe Chicago wind off Lake Michigan didn't just bite—it carved through skin like a surgical blade.
I kept my distance, pulling the collar of my wool overcoat high around my face as I tailed Beatrice. She walked with a hunched, defensive posture, clutching the heavy plastic container to her chest as if it were a fragile newborn. Every few blocks, she glanced over her shoulder. Every time she did, I stepped back into the safety of a dark alcove or behind the frozen concrete pillar of an elevated train platform.
Why would a simple maid risk working in the most dangerous estate in Illinois just for scraps?
My empire—the Vale Syndicate—stretched across every major port, warehouse, and financial district from the Loop down to Indiana. People didn’t steal from me. If they did, they vanished. Yet, watching Beatrice’s cracked leather boots crunching through the dirty slush, I felt an unfamiliar pull. A cold instinct in my gut whispered that this wasn't about hunger.
This was about secrets.
She turned off the main avenue, plunging deeper into the neglected grid of the West Side. The streetlights here flickered lazily, buzzing like dying insects against the oppressive dark. Brick tenements loomed overhead, their windows dark and broken, patched with cardboard and duct tape.
She stopped in front of a derelict brownstone. Its front steps were caved in, and a rusted iron gate hung precariously by a single hinge.
I crouched behind a snow-dusted dumpster across the street, my heart beating with a steady, rhythmic thud.
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Beatrice didn't use the front door. She slipped down a narrow, icy alleyway that led to the basement bulkhead. A muffled click echoed through the frost, followed by the heavy groan of rusted hinges.
And then, a sliver of warm, yellow light spilled out onto the dirty snow.
