Chapter 8 - THE MAN WITH THE COLD HANDSThe heavy oak doors of the grand foyer didn't just open—they were blown inward by a secondary breaching charge that turned the priceless antique sideboards into splinters.
Victor Slade walked through the smoke like an executioner who owned the county coroner.
He was a tall, heavily built man with silver-streaked hair swept back from a scarred forehead, wearing an expensive camel-hair overcoat that looked entirely out of place amid the burning drywall and shattered glass. Two armed enforcers flanked him, their weapons leveled at the grand staircase where Roman Cross stood waiting.
"You’ve got a drafty house, Roman," Slade called out, his voice rich, gravelly, and dripping with contempt as he stepped over a piece of gilded molding. "Must be hard to keep the heating bills paid when half your dock union is on strike and the federal grand jury is looking at your shipping manifests."
Roman didn't move an inch. He stood on the landing halfway up the grand staircase, his Sig Sauer resting loosely in his right hand, the silver wolf-headed walking stick leaning against the banister beside him.
"You broke my gate, Victor," Roman said, his voice cutting through the smoke with the cold precision of a falling guillotine. "That’s three million dollars of imported wrought iron from Tuscany. Your accountants aren't going to like the invoice."
Slade chuckled, pulling a thick Cuban cigar from his pocket and biting off the end without lighting it. "Keep your iron, Roman. I came for two things: the girl who owes my syndicate fifty-one grand, and the boy who’s holding the key to your offshore accounts."
"The girl’s debt is paid," Roman said, taking a slow step down the stairs. "I signed the check myself."
"A check drawn on a frozen account doesn't buy groceries on the South Side," Slade sneered, signaling his enforcers to advance up the lower steps. "And that dishwasher isn't your concern anyway. Hand her over, hand the boy down, and maybe I won't let the Tribune publish what your late wife was signing off on at the pediatric clinic before her heart gave out."
Roman stopped dead.
The air in the grand foyer dropped twenty degrees.
"What did you say about my wife?" Roman whispered.
"Oh, you didn't know?" Slade smiled, a cold, ugly twist of his lips. "Claire wasn't just a cardiologist, Roman. She was auditing the free clinic's drug ledgers two days before she collapsed. She found out where your syndicates were laundering the pharmaceutical imports through the children's ward. She was going to go to the feds."
Slade took another step forward. "She didn't die of a natural heart defect, my friend. Her heart just couldn't take the weight of knowing her husband was running a butcher shop."
For a fraction of a second, Roman Cross—the untouchable king of the North Side—swayed. The color drained entirely from his face, leaving him looking like a marble statue carved from ancient, weathered stone.
From the top of the stairs, behind the carved wooden banister, a small voice broke the silence like a silver bell.
"That's a lie."
Slade and Roman both snapped their heads upward.
Max stood at the top of the landing, his small hands gripping the wooden railing so hard his knuckles were translucent. His dark eyes were blazing with a cold, terrifying fury that looked identical to the man standing twenty feet below him.
May you like
"She didn't go to the feds," Max said, his voice clear, steady, and loud enough to ring off the vaulted ceiling. "She went to the safe. She took the red book out before the bad men came."
Slade’s face dropped its smirk instantly. "Get him!"
