Chapter 5 - Blood on the Ice
Enzo didn’t need to be told twice.
“Matteo, hit the throttle the second I fire!” Enzo yelled.
Enzo grabbed the grenade launcher strapped to the boat’s weapon rack, rolled onto his back, and aimed through the shattered windshield toward the ridge. He squeezed the trigger.
The 40mm high-explosive round tore through the freezing air and slammed into the stone gazebo where the sniper was perched. The structure exploded in a blinding fireball, sending masonry, glass, and gunmen flying into the snowy embankment.
“Go!” Enzo shouted.
Matteo slammed the throttle forward. The boat leaped out of the slip, crashing through the thin sheet of ice that had formed near the shoreline and rocketing out into the open, churning darkness of Lake Michigan.
Behind them, the DeLuca mansion burned against the night sky, a towering inferno that lit up the low winter clouds.
Inside the cabin, Enzo collapsed against the passenger bench, breathing heavily. He checked Harper over with quick, practiced hands. “You hit?”
“No,” she panted, shivering violently from adrenaline and the freezing spray. She looked back at the fire. “Everything you had… it’s gone.”
“Brick and mortar,” Enzo said coldly, wiping soot from his brow. “I can buy another house tomorrow. But your father just made this personal.”
Matteo steered the vessel north, staying off radar paths and heading toward an old industrial warehouse the DeLuca family owned near the Port of Chicago. “Boss, where do we go once we hit the docks? Preston will have every road from Evanston to downtown locked down with crooked cops.”
“We go to Luca,” Enzo said.
Matteo stiffened. “Luca? Boss, your uncle hasn't spoken to you since your father died. He hates your guts.”
“Luca hates Preston Whitcomb more,” Enzo replied, his gaze locked on the silver USB drive sitting on the navigation table. “And Luca was the one who tried to warn Nathan about the shipments before Nathan was murdered.”
Harper sat up, her face pale under the cabin lights. “Enzo… your uncle Luca isn't in Chicago.”
Enzo narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“My father had him arrested three days ago,” Harper said quietly. “He used federal agents on his payroll. Luca is currently sitting in a black-site holding cell at the Cook County annex—and his transfer to a federal penitentiary is scheduled for six o'clock this morning.”
May you like
Enzo checked his watch. It was 3:45 AM.
“Then we have two hours,” Enzo said, “to break into a federal prison.”
