Chapter 8 - Ashes of the Empire
By dawn, the Chicago media was in a feeding frenzy.
“EMPIRE COLLAPSE: Daniel Carter’s Logistics Network Raided by Federal Task Force in Pre-Dawn Sweep.”
Headlines screamed across every digital screen in the city. Radio hosts babbled excitedly about the sudden downfall of the untouchable kingpin of the North Side. My bank accounts were locked. My warehouses were seized. My trusted lieutenants were either in federal custody or had already flipped to save their own skins.
I sat in the dim, cramped back room of a dingy auto-repair shop in the industrial flats—the only property I owned that wasn't registered under my name or Carter Holdings.
Michael Reed stood by the greasy window, binoculars pressed to his eyes, watching the main road for tails. “The Feds have a warrant out for your arrest, Boss. Interpol is flagged at the borders. We’re officially ghosts.”
“Let them look,” I muttered, staring at a single piece of paper I had managed to salvage from the Lake Forest estate before the raid—a torn half of a shipping manifest bearing the seal of Alcyone Ventures and a specific GPS coordinate in the Michigan dunes.
“What’s our next move?” Michael asked, turning to me. “Do we run to Canada? I have a contact near Thunder Bay.”
“No,” I said, standing up and tossing my ruined suit jacket onto the workbench. I picked up my Sig Sauer, sliding a fresh magazine into the well. “We don't run. We finish what Moretti started.”
“Boss, you have nothing left. No money, no army, no leverage.”
“I have the one thing Viktor Vance doesn't,” I replied, my eyes hardening into flint. “I know who Claire really is. And more importantly... I know her weakness.”
May you like
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Her weakness? She just outsmarted you for six months and handed your entire empire to your mortal enemy.”
“No,” I said softly, remembering the way her hand had instinctively protected her belly even while she looked at me with pure hatred. “She’s seven months pregnant, hiding in a safehouse with a man she only uses as a weapon, carrying a child she knows is trapped in the middle of a war zone. Claire isn't cold-blooded, Michael. She’s terrified. And terror makes mistakes.”
