Chapter 3 - Shadows in the LoopThe sun had barely risen over Lake Michigan when Mason stepped into the study, breaking the heavy silence between Gabriel and me. He didn't bother knocking—in this house, protocol bent only for emergencies.
"Boss, we have a problem at the downtown high-rise," Mason said, his face carved from granite. "The forensic audit team you deployed to secure Miss Bennett's office just reported in. Someone triggered a remote wipe on her workstation."
I stood up so fast my vision swam, clutching the woolen blanket tighter around my shoulders. "That's impossible. My terminal requires dual-factor biometric authentication tied directly to my office safe, plus an offline hardware token."
"It was bypassed ten minutes ago," Mason replied, looking directly at Gabriel. "The local server room at the Loop office is currently flooding with halon gas, and all local backups have been erased. Someone inside the corporate structure is cleaning house."
Gabriel didn't curse. He didn't raise his voice. He simply walked over to the floor-to-ceiling gun cabinet near the fireplace, spun the combination lock with fluid, practiced precision, and pulled out a matte-black SIG Sauer P320, checking the magazine before tucking it into a concealed shoulder holster beneath his vest.
"They aren't just wiping files," Gabriel said coldly, sliding his suit jacket back on. "They're covering the tracks of the mole who leaked our convoy route last night."
"If they wiped my workstation, they've corrupted the master ledger for the third-quarter acquisitions," I said, my accountant's mind overriding the physical pain in my ribs. "If those numbers don't match the federal filings by tomorrow morning, the SEC is going to freeze every asset we have, and every rival syndicate in the Midwest is going to smell blood in the water."
Gabriel stopped halfway to the door and turned back, looking at me with an expression that was half-admiration and half-frustration. "You just survived an assassination attempt, drove twenty-eight miles through a war zone, and your first concern is SEC compliance?"
"Numbers don't lie, Gabriel. People do," I retorted, dropping the blanket and walking over to the coat rack where my torn beige coat still hung like a battle flag. "And someone just tried to kill me over my spreadsheets. I want to know who."
Gabriel stared at me for three long seconds. A slow, dangerous smirk touched the corner of his mouth—the first real smile I had ever seen on him.
"Mason," Gabriel ordered sharply. "Get the bulletproof Mercedes ready. We're going back downtown."
Ten minutes later, we were slicing through the morning Chicago traffic at eighty miles per hour, sirens wailing in our wake as Mason cleared civilian vehicles out of our path with unmarked police lights mounted behind the grille.
As we pulled up to the glass-and-steel monolith in the Loop where I had spent two years pretending to be harmless, the lobby was strangely quiet. Too quiet.
The security guards at the front desk weren't the usual private contractors Gabriel employed. They were strangers—men wearing overly tailored suits that couldn't quite conceal the tactical harnesses underneath.
Gabriel looked at me in the back seat, his hand resting on the grip of his hidden firearm.
"Stay in the car," he commanded.
May you like
"No," I said, reaching down to unbuckle my seatbelt. "They're looking for my files, Gabriel. Which means they're looking for me. You might be Chicago's most feared man, but you don't know the filing system. And if you shoot the wrong server rack, we lose everything."
Gabriel's eyes flashed with warning, but before he could argue, I pushed the door open and stepped out into the freezing morning wind, ready to wage war with a ledger in my hand.
