Chapter 7 - The Final ChoiceThe private hangar at Midway Airport was bathed in the harsh, sterile glow of overhead halogen lights. My Gulfstream jet sat waiting on the tarmac, its turbine engines humming a low, steady idle.
Dominic and my security detail stood perimeter guard by the hangar doors, keeping the outside world at bay.
Inside the plush cabin of the jet, Maya sat in a leather armchair with her three children asleep across her lap, exhausted from the sheer terror of the afternoon.
I stood near the cabin door, holding a thick leather briefcase and a secure satellite phone.
Maya looked up as I approached, her expression guarded. "You're not coming with us?"
"No," I replied softly, shaking my head. "If I stay with you, or if I put you in one of my safehouses in the city, Salvatore will find out. The Moretti family will keep hunting. As long as my enemies know I have a weakness, you will never be safe."
She stared at me, her green eyes searching my face as if trying to find the ruthless mafia heir she had learned to fear.
"Then why..." She swallowed hard. "Why are you letting us go?"
"Because for the first time in my life, Maya, I'm choosing something other than power," I said, my voice thick with emotion. I placed the leather briefcase on the table beside her. It popped open with a soft click, revealing stacked portfolios, deeds to properties in the Swiss Alps and a secluded estate in New Zealand, and enough untraceable capital to ensure my children would never have to worry about a single meal for the rest of their lives.
"This is freedom," I continued. "A new identity. Clean passports. No syndicate connections. No Salvatore Vale. No Adrian."
Maya looked down at the briefcase, then back up at me, her lower lip trembling. "And you? What happens to you?"
"I go back to the boardroom and the war," I said, offering a faint, bitter smile. "I take the fight to Salvatore and the Moretti family. I dismantle the syndicate from the inside out, piece by bloody piece, until there is no one left who can ever threaten your name again."
"Adrian..." Tears spilled over her lashes once more. "You'll die."
"Maybe," I said honestly. "Or maybe I'll finally earn the right to look these children in the eye when this is over."
I reached out, my fingers gently brushing a stray lock of dark hair from my daughter's forehead. The little girl stirred in her sleep, her tiny hand twitching instinctively, her gray eyes fluttering open for a brief second before she drifted back into peaceful slumber.
My chest tightened so severely I could barely breathe.
"Take care of them, Maya," I whispered, pulling my hand away like I had been burned.
I turned around, walked down the carpeted stairs of the jet, and stepped out onto the cold tarmac.
"Boss," Dominic murmured, waiting by the base of the stairs. "The pilot is cleared for takeoff. Flight plan filed for Zurich."
May you like
"Good," I muttered, sliding my sunglasses back over my eyes as the jet doors sealed shut.
I watched through the reinforced glass windows as the Gulfstream taxied down the runway, its lights blinking against the darkening Chicago evening sky, carrying away the only pieces of my soul that mattered.
