Chapter 10
Leo nodded frantically, sweat beading on his brow despite the biting wind. "Done. It’s done, Dante. Anything else?"
"Second," Dante looked down at Tariq, who was still kneeling in the puddle. "Your store is closed. Effective immediately. Marco will send a crew to empty your shelves and distribute the inventory to the community parish down the street. If you are still in Cook County by sunrise tomorrow, Tariq, I will have you buried under the second pier of the Navy Pier renovation."
Tariq began weeping openly, nodding into his hands.
"And Henderson," Dante said, glancing at the rat-faced manager.
"Y-yes, sir?"
"The eviction warrant."
Henderson reached out with shaking fingers, took the papers from the clipboard, and tore them into four pieces.
"Eat them," Dante said.
Henderson blinked, his jaw slack. "What?"
Dante’s eyes didn't waver. "Eat them. Every scrap. If you don't swallow that ink before I count to ten, Marco will put a nine-millimeter round through your kneecap."
Henderson didn't wait for the count. He shoved the torn carbon paper into his mouth, chewing furiously through his tears, gagging on the wet fibers as Leo watched in absolute, horrified silence.
Dante turned his back on them, walking down the steps toward the Maybach.
"Marco," Dante called out over his shoulder.
"Yes, boss?"
"Find out where Sarah Vance is being held. Pay for the funeral. A private plot at Holy Sepulchre. High ground. Plenty of flowers. And make sure the girl never has to see her mother put into a pauper’s ditch."
"I'll handle it myself," Marco said.
Dante climbed back into the warm, dry leather interior of the Maybach, pulled the door shut, and watched the three men on the sidewalk disappear as the car turned north toward the lake.
Six weeks later, the morning sun broke over Chicago with the brilliant, clean clarity of late spring.
In the private chambers of Chief Judge Marcus Thorne on the twenty-second floor of the Cook County Circuit Court, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of old law books, lemon oil, and profound tension.
Judge Thorne, a man who had spent thirty years watching the city’s political machinery turn, sat behind his massive walnut desk with a pair of half-moon reading glasses perched on his nose. Across from him sat Victoria Reynolds, the Senior Regional Director for the Department of Children and Family Services, clutching a red binder to her chest.