Chapter 7
Dante set the cigar down on the mahogany desk. He picked up his watch from the silver tray, strapped it to his wrist, and buttoned his cuffs.
"Call Leo," Dante said.
"What do you want me to tell him?"
"Tell him to meet me at the property on Loomis in one hour," Dante said smoothly. "Tell him to bring Henderson, bring Tariq, and bring the eviction folder. If any of them are late by ninety seconds, tell Leo I will revoke his license to breathe Chicago air."
Marco closed the dossier with a sharp snap. "Understood. What about the girls?"
Dante looked through the glass partition.
Mia had shifted in her sleep, her small fingers clutching the edge of the blanket, her face relaxed for the first time in what had likely been months.
"Dr. Rossi and two private nurses will remain here," Dante instructed. "Place four men from the inner detail in the hallway. If anyone from Child and Family Services, the police department, or the press steps out of that elevator without my written seal, shoot them in the knees and throw them into the lake. I will handle the state by evening."
"Dante," Marco said cautiously, stepping forward. "The state doesn't just hand over two children to a man whose name is on three active federal wiretap warrants. You don't have legal custody. If the municipal authorities find out—"
"The municipal authorities work for the people who fund their campaigns, Marco," Dante replied, his voice dropping into that dark, absolute certainty that had made him the most feared man in Illinois. "And those people work for me. Move."
The rain on South Loomis was different from the rain downtown.
Downtown, it washed polished stone and drained through clean brass grates. Here, it churned the trash in the gutters into a greasy gray paste, pooling in potholes that looked like craters on an artillery range.
Four black Mercedes sedans were parked at an angle across the sidewalk, completely blocking the entrance to the three-story brick tenement.
Standing on the cracked concrete steps, huddled beneath three large umbrellas held by nervous bodyguards, were three men.
Leo Moretti, forty-two, wearing a dripping camel-hair coat that looked too tight across his thick gut, was chewing on the filter of a cigarette, his eyes darting toward the end of the block. Beside him stood Henderson, a rat-faced man in an ill-fitting polyester suit carrying a clipboard, and Tariq, a squat, balding man in a stained leather jacket whose hands were shoved deep into his pockets.