Chapter 11 - The Phantom of the South Side
The crisp October wind whipped fallen leaves across the courtyard of my North Side estate, but inside the perimeter walls, the atmosphere was deceptively calm.
For six months, the underworld had stayed quiet. The vacuum left by Maroni’s collapse and Vance’s imprisonment had been filled by cautious men who remembered the lesson of the eighty thousand dollars. They knew Salvatore Gallo did not merely fight for territory; he broke empires if his people were threatened. But peace in Chicago is never permanent; it is merely a suspended breath between gunshots.
I sat at my mahogany desk, reviewing shipping manifests for our legal import lines, when the secure intercom on my desk buzzed twice.
It was Vinnie.
“Boss, you’re going to want to see this,” his voice crackled through the speaker, low and tight with tension. “Get down to the garage. Now.”
I didn’t ask questions. I stood up, slipped my jacket over my shoulders, and walked down the private stone staircase that led directly to the underground subterranean motor pool.
Vinnie and Dante were standing beside my bulletproof Maybach. On the concrete floor between them lay a sealed, heavy-duty manila envelope, dripping wet from the morning dew. There was no return address. Just my name written in sharp, blocky capital letters: SALVATORE GALLO.
“Where did this come from?” I asked, my voice cutting through the echoing silence of the garage.
“It was pinned to the front security gate with a hunting knife,” Dante said, his hand resting instinctively near the pistol holstered beneath his vest. “The perimeter sensors didn't trigger. Whoever dropped it bypassed the thermal tripwires completely.”
I knelt down, picked up the envelope, and slid my thumb under the heavy wax seal.
Inside was a single glossy 8x10 photograph and a folded sheet of heavy cardstock.
I unfolded the photo first.
My breath caught in my throat. It was a picture of Linda and Keo stepping out of the pediatric clinic on the West Side just twenty minutes earlier. Keo was holding a blue Captain Galaxy balloon, smiling up at his mother. But slashed across the photograph in bold, crimson marker was a single word: EXPOSED.
I flipped open the cardstock. Inside, typed on an old manual typewriter, was a short message:
“Salvatore thinks he buried the past on Ashland Avenue. He forgot that blood leaves a trail. The debt hasn't been paid in full, Gallo. Bring eighty million in bearer bonds to the abandoned grain silos by midnight, or the cleaning girl and her boy learn how deep the Chicago River really is. No cops. No enforcers. Just you.”
I stared at the paper, every muscle in my body locking into lethal, icy focus.
Vinnie watched my face closely. “Boss... who is this? Maroni’s people are locked up. Vance’s crew is scattered. Who even knows about Linda’s connection to you?”
“Only someone who was watching from the very beginning,” I said softly, standing up and sliding the note into my coat pocket.
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“You’re not actually going to go to the grain silos alone?” Dante asked, disbelief cutting through his hardened voice. “It’s a trap, Boss. A textbook execution setup.”
“Of course it’s a trap,” I replied, pulling my Sig Sauer P226 from its holster and checking the chamber with a sharp, metallic snap. “The question isn't whether they want to kill me. The question is why they think they can use Linda to do it.”
