Chapter 5 - THE BODY DOUBLE AND THE BURNER
The words on the small, glowing screen felt like a physical blow.
One of your men shot the body double.
I read the text message three times, my mind struggling to process the impossible reality.
“A body double?” Nico breathed, slamming on the brakes. The luxury sedan skidded to a halt on the deserted, rain-slicked street. He stared at me, his eyes wide with a frantic, desperate hope. “Claire, read it again.”
“‘Luca wasn't the only one wearing a vest tonight. One of your men shot the body double,’” I repeated, my voice shaking.
Nico gripped the steering wheel, his chest heaving. “He’s alive. Oh my God, he’s alive.”
“But how?” I asked, bewildered. “Who was wearing his vest?”
Nico let out a harsh, incredulous laugh, wiping the tears from his face. “My dad is paranoid, Claire. He’s survived three assassination attempts in the last ten years. He always kept a body double on retainer—a guy who matched his height and build, trained to wear his clothes and distract shooters during a breach. That’s whose vest Dominic had in the warehouse. My dad escaped.”
A wave of profound relief washed over me. Luca wasn't dead. He had survived the bloodbath in the kitchen.
“But if he’s alive, where is he?” I panicked, looking out the dark windows. “Dominic’s men are still hunting him.”
“He’s going to go to ground,” Nico said, his mind racing, the terrified kid vanishing as the tactical instincts of a mafia boss’s son kicked in. “He can't trust the syndicate captains until he knows who sold him out. He’ll go to a secondary safe house. One that isn't on the official books.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“No,” Nico shook his head in frustration. “He never told me. He said knowing the locations made me a target for interrogation.”
Nico looked at the burner phone in my hand. His brow furrowed in confusion.
“Claire, read the first part of Vanessa’s message again.”
I looked down at the screen. “‘I’m at the extraction point. The package is secure.’”
“What package does Vanessa have?” Nico muttered, putting the car back in gear and driving slowly. “She left the house with nothing but her purse. Why would Dominic’s entire coup depend on her bringing a package to an extraction point?”
I stared at the phone, my mind flashing back to the disastrous dinner. The argument. The watch.
And then, a cold, sickening realization hit me.
“The bank statement,” I whispered.
Nico looked at me sharply. “What?”
“Before you brought out the bank statement, Vanessa said she was transferring the money to a hedge fund,” I recalled rapidly. “But your dad said her brother runs a money laundering operation for the Russians. What if Vanessa didn't lose the two hundred thousand dollars? What if she used it to buy something from the Russians?”
“Buy what?”
“Leverage,” I said, my heart hammering. “Nico, your father controls the shipping ports. Dominic wants those ports. But even if Luca is dead, the syndicate lawyers would tie up the assets for years in probate court. Unless Dominic had physical possession of the original bearer bonds.”
Nico’s face went completely pale. “The bearer bonds.”
“What are they?” I asked frantically.
“They’re untraceable, physical certificates,” Nico explained, his voice tight with dread. “My dad keeps twenty million dollars in bearer bonds as a fail-safe. Whoever physically holds the paper owns the money. It’s how the syndicate transfers vast amounts of wealth without a paper trail. If Dominic gets those bonds, he can buy the loyalty of every captain in Chicago by morning.”
“Where does your dad keep them?”
“In a biometric safe hidden in his office at the estate,” Nico said. “But Vanessa doesn't have the fingerprints to open it.”
“She doesn't need fingerprints if she has the package,” I said, the horrifying puzzle finally clicking together. “Nico... what if the package is a person? A safecracker the Russians brought in?”
Nico shook his head. “The safe is military-grade. A safecracker would take days to drill it. Dominic doesn't have days.”
He stared at the road, his jaw clenched tight. Then, his eyes widened in absolute horror.
“No,” Nico whispered, slamming his hand against the steering wheel. “No, she wouldn't.”
“Nico, what is it?” I panicked.
“The safe isn't just biometric,” Nico said, his voice shaking with pure terror. “It has a voice-recognition override. It requires my dad’s voice to authorize the opening sequence.”
I stared at him, confused. “But your dad is on the run. Vanessa doesn't have his voice.”
“She doesn't need his voice,” Nico choked out, looking at me with tears welling in his eyes again. “The override accepts two voices, Claire. My dad programmed it ten years ago in case he was ever incapacitated.”
“Whose is the second voice?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Mine,” Nico whispered.
The silence in the car was suffocating.
Vanessa didn't need to kidnap Luca. She needed Nico. That’s why Dominic had him cornered in the warehouse. That’s why Dominic didn't just kill him on sight. They needed Nico alive to speak the override code and open the safe containing twenty million dollars.
But Nico had escaped.
“If Dominic doesn't have you,” I breathed, “who is the package Vanessa has at the extraction point?”
Nico snatched the burner phone from my hand. He opened the text thread and typed a reply to Vanessa, pretending to be Dominic.
Bring the package to the secondary location. The kid got away.
He hit send.
We waited in agonizing suspense for thirty seconds.
The phone buzzed. A reply from Vanessa.
I told you the boy was a flight risk. It doesn't matter. The package is secure. I have the recorded audio files from Luca’s office. I spliced his voice together. We don't need the kid to open the safe.
Nico exhaled a harsh, jagged breath. “She recorded his voice. She’s going to use a playback file to trick the voice recognition.”
“Where is the extraction point?” I asked, desperation clawing at my chest. “If she opens that safe, Dominic takes the city, and your dad will be hunted for the rest of his life.”
Nico typed another message to Vanessa.
Confirm location.
The reply came instantly.
The old boathouse on the lake. Hurry up, Dominic. I’m freezing.
Nico tossed the phone onto the dashboard. He grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, a terrifying, ruthless determination settling over his young face. He suddenly looked exactly like the man who ruled the Chicago underworld.
“Hang on, Claire,” Nico said coldly.
He violently cranked the steering wheel, throwing the luxury sedan into a massive, screeching U-turn in the middle of the empty street. He slammed his foot on the gas pedal, accelerating toward the lakefront at a terrifying speed.
“Nico, what are you doing?!” I screamed, gripping the door handle as the car fishtailed slightly on the wet pavement. “We have to find your dad! We can't go to the boathouse alone!”
“My dad is out there bleeding, thinking he lost everything,” Nico shouted over the roar of the engine. “I’m not running to Milwaukee to hide like a coward while that woman steals my mother’s legacy and my father’s empire!”
“We don't have weapons!” I panicked. “We have one handgun and a crowbar! Vanessa will have Russian guards with her!”
“I don't care if she has the entire Red Army,” Nico snarled, his eyes burning with a lethal fire. “She told me my father didn't love me. She tried to make me leave him. I am going to make her regret the day she ever walked into our house.”
I stared at the twenty-one-year-old boy. He wasn't the quiet, exhausted kid carrying a duffel bag anymore. The betrayal had ignited the Mafia blood in his veins.
We were going to war.
But as the dark outline of the lakefront boathouse appeared in the distance, illuminated by the flashing lightning of the storm, my heart completely stopped.
Parked outside the wooden structure wasn't a Russian convoy.
It was a single, heavily armored black SUV.
The same SUV Marco had been driving.
“Nico, stop the car,” I whispered, absolute terror flooding my system.
Nico slammed on the brakes, skidding to a halt fifty yards away from the boathouse.
We stared through the rain-streaked windshield.
Standing on the wooden dock, holding an umbrella over Vanessa Bellini, was Marco.
May you like
Luca’s head of security. The man who had supposedly died in the warehouse an hour ago.
And resting in Marco’s free hand was the twenty-million-dollar lockbox.
