Chapter 4 - THE WOLF'S BITE
Elias didn't wait for Nakia to understand. He threw his entire weight across the leather bench, slamming her head down into the seat cushion just as the deafening roar of a gunshot filled the enclosed cabin.
The bullet shattered the thick plexiglass partition dividing the front and rear of the SUV, burying itself in the leather exactly where Elias’s chest had been a millisecond before.
The driver cursed, the heavy vehicle swerving violently on the wet asphalt as he tried to aim his weapon backward for a second shot while keeping the car on the road.
"Hold on!" Elias shouted over the ringing in his ears.
He didn't draw a gun. Instead, Elias kicked upward with brutal, calculated precision. His heavy leather shoe slammed through the broken partition, connecting squarely with the driver's wrist. The gun fired wildly into the roof, the flash briefly illuminating the dark interior.
The driver roared in pain, dropping the weapon into the passenger footwell. But the distraction cost him control of the two-ton vehicle. The SUV hydroplaned across the slick avenue, jumping the curb and smashing violently into a row of steel newspaper stands before grinding to a halt against a concrete light pole.
The airbags deployed with a concussive boom. White smoke filled the cabin.
For a few seconds, there was only the sound of hissing radiator fluid and the relentless rain drumming against the metal roof.
Elias pushed himself off Nakia, his ears ringing, a thin line of blood trickling from a cut above his eyebrow.
"Nakia," he rasped, coughing through the acrid airbag smoke. "Are you hit?"
She groaned, slowly pushing herself up from the seat. Her green dress was covered in fine glass dust, but she nodded, her eyes wide with shock. "I'm okay. I'm okay."
Elias looked through the shattered partition. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, unconscious, blood pooling on the deployed airbag.
"We need to move," Elias said, kicking the heavy, armored back door open. "Silas won't have sent just one man."
He dragged Nakia out into the freezing rain. The street was relatively empty, the storm having driven pedestrians indoors. The crashed SUV sat on the sidewalk, smoking in the amber glow of a streetlamp.
Elias gripped her hand, pulling her down a narrow, dark alleyway adjacent to the crash site. He needed to get them off the street, out of sight. His mind was compartmentalizing the trauma, operating purely on survival logistics.
Silas. His most trusted lieutenant. The man who had stood beside him at his father's funeral. Silas had sold him out to the Volkovs. It made sickening sense now. The three-million-dollar cargo delay in Miami was a fabrication, a smokescreen to distract Elias while Silas fed Nakia's background file to the Russians.
"Elias," Nakia panted as they leaned against the cold brick wall of the alley, hidden in the shadows. She was shivering violently, her bare shoulders exposed to the freezing rain. "Silas... that’s your friend. The one who comes over for scotch on Tuesdays."
"He was my friend," Elias corrected, his voice cold. He stripped off his heavy, soaked wool coat and draped it over Nakia's shoulders. The coat swallowed her, but it offered immediate warmth. "Now he is a dead man."
Nakia pulled the lapels tight around her neck. She looked up at him, the fear in her eyes hardening into something else. Something fiercely protective.
"Why my sister?" she asked, her voice trembling but demanding an answer. "Why use Maya and Leo? Silas could have just hired someone to shoot you."
Elias hesitated. He looked away, watching the rain pool in the cracked pavement. This was the part he had never wanted her to know. The ugly truth of how his world touched hers long before she ever walked into his penthouse with a cleaning caddy.
"Maya didn't just die three years ago, Nakia," Elias said softly. "She was murdered."
Nakia stopped breathing. The color completely drained from her face. "What? The police said it was an overdose. They found her in her apartment with..."
"It was staged," Elias interrupted gently. He stepped closer to her, shielding her from the wind. "Your sister was an accountant. A brilliant one. Three years ago, she was hired as an independent auditor for a shell corporation that, unbeknownst to her, belonged to my syndicate. Specifically, Silas’s division."
Nakia stared at him, her eyes wide, processing the horror. "She found something."
Elias nodded grimly. "She found a discrepancy. Silas was skimming from the top, stealing millions from the organization to fund his own side-deals with the Volkovs. Maya found the ledger. She panicked. Instead of coming to me, she tried to blackmail Silas."
"Maya wouldn't do that," Nakia whispered, shaking her head. "She wouldn't put Leo in danger."
"People do desperate things for money, Nakia. Especially a single mother struggling to pay rent," Elias said, his tone devoid of judgment, only stating facts. "Silas couldn't let her expose him. He staged the overdose. I only found out the truth a week after she died. I couldn't prove Silas did it without tearing my organization apart, so I buried it. I watched you take in her son."
"You knew," Nakia breathed, stepping back, the betrayal hitting her harder than the crash. "You knew my sister was murdered, and you hired me to clean your house? Was I some kind of sick charity project?"
"I hired you to keep you safe!" Elias snapped, his carefully maintained control finally cracking. He grabbed her by the shoulders, not hard, but desperate for her to understand. "Silas knew Maya had a sister. If he thought you had copies of those ledgers, he would have killed you too. I brought you into my home because it’s the most heavily guarded fortress in Chicago. Under my roof, Silas couldn't touch you."
Nakia stared at him, tears mixing with the rain on her cheeks. The controlling, obsessive man who hated coffee rings had secretly been acting as her bodyguard for eight months.
Before she could process the revelation, a harsh, metallic sound echoed at the far end of the alley.
The distinct sound of a tactical shotgun racking a shell into the chamber.
Elias instantly shoved Nakia behind him, pulling a sleek, matte-black handgun from his waistband.
Three figures blocked the exit to the street. In the center stood Silas, wearing a tailored suit, looking entirely unbothered by the rain.
"You always were too sentimental, Elias," Silas called out, his voice echoing off the brick walls. "I told you hiring the sister was a mistake. She’s a loose end."
"The only mistake I made was not putting a bullet in your head three years ago, Silas," Elias replied, keeping his gun leveled at his former friend's chest.
Silas chuckled, pulling a small, plastic keycard from his pocket. He held it up. The plastic had a faded blue logo on it.
The logo of the Chicago Transit Authority.
"You know what this is, Elias?" Silas asked, a cruel smile twisting his lips. "It’s an access card to the utility tunnels beneath the old 47th street rail yard. The Volkovs are holding the boy down there. But the water pumps failed two hours ago because of the storm."
Nakia let out a strangled gasp behind Elias.
May you like
Silas dropped the keycard onto the wet pavement and kicked it forward.
"The basement is flooding," Silas said coldly. "The water will hit the ceiling in thirty minutes. You can stay here and shoot it out with us, Elias, or you can take the card, run to the rail yard, and try to save her little mutt before he drowns. Your choice."
