Chapter 7 - The Downfall of the Syndicate
The sun was just beginning to crest over Lake Michigan, painting the Chicago skyline in shades of bruised purple and gold, when the black SUV pulled back up to the lakefront estate.
The estate was no longer guarded just by Sebastian’s men.
It was surrounded by federal agents, local police, and state troopers.
Word had leaked out of Warehouse 4 before dawn. Victor Cross, bleeding and broken, had cut a deal with the FBI field office within ten minutes of being thrown into the back of a squad car. He gave them everything: the names of the corrupt senators, the secret Swiss bank accounts, the shell corporations, and the medical records detailing the twenty-year conspiracy orchestrated by Arthur Sterling and the old-guard syndicate elders.
By sunrise, Arthur Sterling was dragged out of his Gold Coast penthouse in handcuffs, blinking angrily against the camera flashes of reporters who had already dubbed the scandal The Lombardi Implosion.
Inside the grand bedroom of the lakehouse, the fire was still burning.
I was standing by the window, holding a cup of black coffee, watching the police cruisers leave the gates.
Behind me, the sound of rhythmic, heavy footsteps echoed across the hardwood floor.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
I turned around.
Sebastian Lombardi was walking across his bedroom without support. He was leaning slightly to the left, his gait still recovering from twenty years of atrophy, but he was moving under his own power. He wore a crisp white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, revealing scarred, muscular forearms.
He stopped a few feet away from me, looking down at his own hands, then up at my face.
“The doctors say,” Sebastian said, his voice softer than I had ever heard it, “that with six months of intensive physical therapy, I’ll have full mobility back.”
“The doctors are finally right about something,” I smiled, leaning against the windowsill.
Sebastian walked closer until he was standing right in front of me. The towering, terrifying mob boss who had ruled half of Chicago from a titanium chair was gone. In his place was a man who had just taken his life back from the grave.
“When Gabriel brought you to my room,” Sebastian said quietly, “I thought you were just another scam artist trying to make a quick buck off a cripple.”
“And instead, I wrecked your entire life,” I replied, raising an eyebrow.
May you like
A slow, genuine smile spread across Sebastian’s face—a smile that chased away the dark, dangerous shadow that had lived in his eyes for two decades.
“You didn't wreck my life, Claire,” he said, reaching out and gently touching my shoulder. “You started it.”
