Chapter 1 - THE BLOOD IN THE SNOW
The wind howling down Michigan Avenue felt like shattered glass against Cole Ashworth’s face, but the freezing air was nothing compared to the absolute, suffocating void opening up inside his chest.
Moose, the massive 130-pound Neapolitan Mastiff, wasn't growling at a threat. He was whining—a low, broken sound that Cole had never heard the animal make in eight long years. The dog pressed his heavy, scarred snout directly against the frail, trembling shape huddled under the flickering yellow streetlamp, frantically licking at a pale, dirt-streaked cheek.
"Don't... please don't hurt her!" the young woman sobbed, her body shaking so violently her teeth clicked together. She scrambled backward on her knees, her hands scraped raw and bleeding, desperately trying to pull the older woman deeper into her own thin, threadbare jacket. "She's sick! She hasn't eaten in two days! Take my bag, take whatever I have, just don't hurt Mrs. Ashworth!"
Cole’s heart stopped. Mrs. Ashworth.
He dropped to his knees in the dirty, sludgy snow, uncaring that his $5,000 custom cashmere coat was soaking through. His leather-gloved hands hovered above the frozen figure, trembling violently.
"Mother?" His voice, usually a blade that silenced entire boardrooms and made brutal underworld lieutenants sweat, cracked into a tiny, terrified whisper.
He pulled back the ragged, stiff woolen blanket. The woman beneath it weighed no more than eighty pounds. Her cheeks were hollowed out, her hair a tangled crown of silver and filth, her lips blue. But when her sunken eyes slowly opened, fluttering against the blinding snow, Cole saw the sharp hazel hue that had looked at him every morning of his childhood.
"Cole?" she rasped, her voice like dry leaves scraping against pavement. A tiny, frostbitten hand reached out, shaking, reaching for his face. "My... my boy?"
"It's me. It's Cole," he stammered, wrapping his massive arms around her frail frame, pulling her lifted body against his chest to offer whatever heat his blood still held. "I'm here, Ma. I'm here. What happened to you? Where is the house? Where is the money?"
"The... the house is gone, Cole," she whimpered, her eyelids dropping heavy with the deadly sleep of hypothermia. "Marcus... Marcus took it all. He said you hated me. He said... he said you wanted me to rot..."
Cole's blood turned from liquid to ice.
Marcus Vance.
Marcus had been Cole’s childhood best friend, the man Cole had trusted above all others when he left the neighborhood. Every single month for ninety-six months, Cole had wired $20,000 directly into a secure escrow account managed by Marcus, with explicit instructions to ensure Mary Ashworth lived like a queen. Cole had sent nearly two million dollars.
And his mother was dying in a gutter.
"Boss!"
A black SUV skidded to a halt at the curb, tires screeching against the ice. Viktor, Cole’s chief enforcer, sprinted out of the driver's side, his hand resting on the holster beneath his jacket, his eyes wide as he took in the scene. "Boss! What’s going on? Is that—"
"Get the heater on full blast!" Cole roared, his voice echoing off the brick walls of the empty alleyway. He scooped his mother up into his arms—she felt light as a dead bird—and turned to the young woman shivering in the snow. Moose refused to move from her side, leaning his massive bulk against her shoulder to keep her warm.
"Who are you?" Cole asked, his gray steel eyes burning with a terrifying, unholy light.
"I'm... I'm Elena," the girl gasped, wiping snow from her bloodshot eyes. "I worked at the diner down the street... until Marcus Vance had it burned down. I've been taking care of your mother for two years, sir. I'm the only reason Marcus didn't kill her outright."
Cole stared at Elena. She had sacrificed her own safety, her own warmth, to keep a abandoned elderly woman alive while Cole sat in his penthouse drinking fifty-year-old scotch.
"Viktor," Cole barked, striding toward the vehicle. "Put Elena in the front seat. Wrap her in my spare coat. Call Dr. Harrison. Tell him if he isn't at the private medical wing in ten minutes, I'll tear his hospital down brick by brick."
"Understood, Boss," Viktor said, grabbing the girl gently and helping her inside.
Cole climbed into the back, holding his mother tightly to his chest, whispering frantic promises into her freezing silver hair while Moose rested his giant head on her lap.
"Hold on, Ma," Cole whispered, his hand clenching into a white-knuckled fist so tight his skin split over his knuckles. "I'm going to fix this. And I am going to burn every single soul who touched you."
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As the SUV tore away into the storm, Cole pulled out his encrypted satellite phone. His finger hovered over a contact named Marcus Vance.
The game was over. The lie had ended. And Chicago was about to bleed.
