Chapter 53 53

Chapter 53 53
Dominic's POV

But with Veronica, I took as much care to prepare for the meeting as if I were prepping for war. This wasn’t a family spat or conversation; this was not kid stuff. This was the enemy’s terrain and I acted accordingly. I had two guns — my main Glock 19, which was an old friend that had kept me safe for years and shown no signs of letting me down now, and a smaller nine-millimeter in an ankle holster that I believed most people would not think to check for. A weapon attached to my belt, hidden by the side of my jacket. Extra ammunition in my pockets. Body armor under my shirt Like the kind that would stop most handgun rounds.” Every weapon inspected, every contingency plan weighed.

Xavier saw me loading up and looked like he thought I was either too smart or too paranoid. Probably both. "You absolutely sure about this? Heading into what is clearly a trap?”

“No, I’m not really positive about anything anymore. The entire world is crumbling — piece by piece.” I glanced at the magazine in my main weapon, fully loaded. “But I have to know what Veronica wants, what she knows, what she plans to tell the federal prosecutors. She knows a lot that could ruin me and the life I’ve built.”

“Details that could wreck you,” Xavier reiterated forcefully, drawing her gaze to him so she would really listen. “So your stupid idea is to go into the lion’s cave with a gun and try to keep her mouth shut. That makes perfect tactical sense."

“I’m walking into a trap to see how much leverage she actually has, and what kind of damage can be done with this leverage.” I met his eyes directly. “That’s a huge difference between those two models.”

Xavier shook his head, slowly, the gesture conveying that he had seen me make bad decisions before; this was near the top of the list. “You’ve changed so much, you know that? Old Dominic — from a few months ago, really — would have put her to death at range. Sniper shot, car accident — something clean and untraceable. New Dominic is trying to talk to people. I’m trying to make it and find deals, make healthy deals.”

“Perhaps I’m mellowing with age.”

“Or perhaps you have feelings for her sister.” Xavier's tone was deliberately pointed. “And also you care about keeping Veronica alive and trying to get her to heel versus dead and turned into a martyr that Vivian would mourn for decades.”

He wasn't wrong. 6 months ago, before Vivian came into my life and threw a damn wrench in everything, I would have just neutralized this threat without so much as a second thought. Veronica would have vanished and the body never been found. But now there were complications. Feelings I didn’t want to inspect too closely. Questions about how Vivian would take it if I killed her sister, no matter how right that might be strategically.
"Just back me up today. Stay close but not visible. I don’t want Veronica scared or thinking I come with an army.”

"Always have, always will."

One more run through of the operational plan; micro-examining every aspect, until we each knew it off by heart. Public space in the middle of the day — Millennium Park, by the Crown Fountain, where there would be witnesses and security cameras everywhere. Xavier would place himself nearby in view, packing heat and at the ready to pull out if things went sideways. I had three other good men_ planted in the open vicinity – all trusted soldiers who’d shared my tent for years. In case the situation descended to violence, we would be prepared as much as possible.

Finally, the time had arrived for us to leave the mansion and we were arming ourselves and setting out details when someone called me on the phone. It said it was Celeste on the screen.

"I just got back from the funeral home and Vivian is not here Dom, she's gone." Her voice was strained with concern and half-masked panic.

My blood ran cold in my veins. "What do you mean she's gone? Where did she go?"

"I don't know. She’s simply not in the apartment. The sentries outside told me she rode away only about twenty minutes since. Told them she was driving to the Gold Coast mansion to get some clothes and personal items.” Celeste's breathing was rapid. “But I phoned the mansion already. She's not there either. Sofia hasn't seen her."

“She’s telling them a lie about where she’s going. She’s not stepping into the mansion.” My mind was already spinning through possibilities, connecting dots, making out the pattern. "Fuck. She's meeting Veronica too. She has to be. Veronica had sort of called her or whatever, talked her into coming."

"Where would they meet?"

"Grant Park. This was the place where Veronica had wanted to meet me. Same location, same time." I was already heading for the door, with Xavier at my heels. "She's setting us both up. Getting us both there, on the same spot at the right moment, where we’re vulnerable and exposed and focused on her instead of looking for what’s actually coming.”

We raced to Grant Park, Xavier's foot heavy on the pedal as I hit Vivian's phone over and over. Each one went straight to voicemail, which could mean she’d either turned it off on purpose or Veronica had told her to. Whichever — she couldn’t be reached and was heading into danger with no idea of what was in store for her.

"How the hell did Veronica manage to reach her?" Xavier said, speeding through a red light and nearly hitting another car. "Vivian's phone is monitored. You would have seen any incoming calls.”

“Somehow he must have used a burner phone, or got hold of her in some other way. An email, perhaps, or a note on social media.” I was looking out the window, all of the streets speeding past trying to figure out how much longer it would be until we got to the park. “She must have said something that made Vivian feel she had no other recourse but to go. Something urgent and compelling."

"Like what?"

"Information about Cassius, probably. His designs, his next course of action, anything that would have Vivian imagine she was doing me a favor by hearing it from the horse’s mouth.” My hands clenched into fists. “That’s just what Veronica is hoping, for the two of us to be there with her, caught off guard by her presence together, our attention on family drama instead of scanning for the real tactical threat closing in on where we are.”

My phone rang again. Another one of my surveillance eyes that had been watching Cassius.

"Boss, we got eyes on Cassius, confirming. He is on the move — through the city, in a black S.U.V. with at least three other cars behind him. Heading directly toward downtown Chicago."

"Where specifically downtown?"

"He seems to be moving toward the Grant Park vicinity at this point from my observations. If he makes it in ten to fifteen minutes."

Of course he was. It was all making sense, the whole picture falling into place. It was Veronica who’d arranged the meet, who reached out to both Vivian and me in private, with Cassius setting up shop behind his people. This was not merely a family argument or bargaining. That was a well-planned ambush meant to kill both of us in one fell swoop.”

“Have every man we can spare rush to Grant Park. Leave whatever it is they’re doing and descend, now. This is happening."

We skidded into a parking space by the park so hard that the car tires smoked. I could already make out the Crown Fountain in the distance, water jets doing their thing. Slowly I filtered my gaze through the room searching for danger; a face, something out of order; anything peculiar. Then I saw them—both of the Carter sisters sitting side by side on a bench some thirty yards from the fountain. Speaking seriously, fascinated by the subject of their conversation, lost to all sense of place or peril rapidly approaching.

And following them, taking up their tactical positions in the slow precision of seasoned hunters, were Cassius’s men. At least five of them that I could immediately make out, likely more than I don’t have a view of from this angle. They were all armed in the way they moved. All bearing down on the two women who were so busy with their own domestic drama that they didn’t notice the killers closing in.

This was it. All was now caught in the trap, and the ambush set. And Vivian, and Veronica were sitting there right in the kill zone, all sitting ducks.

"We have to get them out now," Xavier stated rushed, already running.

"No time for safe extraction. We've got to take away the immediate threat before they can act." I signalled my own men who were coming in and setting up round the edges. “This is about to be a goddamn war zone in the middle of a public park with citizens all around.”

I stepepd up, hand already on my firearm concealed in my jacket. Xavier was to my right. My other soldiers were fanning out, setting up a perimeter and attempting to get angles on Cassius’s men. But his staff saw us coming. Recognized me despite the distance. The surprise effect completely disappeared.

A man of Cassius's laid his hand towards its hilt, plain at so many yards distance. Everything went slow motion all of a sudden, weird time dilation effect that occurs in moments of great crisis as your brain speeds up and somehow you think faster than what is normal time kind of thing.

"DOWN!" I screamed full-throttle at Vivian and Veronica. "GET DOWN RIGHT NOW!"

Both women swung toward my voice, disoriented and jumpy. Their gazes met the groups of armed guys all heading towards them from different directions. Vivian met my eyes from across the way, and I saw everything in that look—blanched horror flavored with apology, remorse and the awful awareness just how completely she’d screwed up.

Then chaos broke out, violently erupting. Gunfire shattered the peaceful afternoon. People screamed and fled like flushed birds in all directions. Parents snatched up their children and fled. Office workers taking lunch breaks cowered behind whatever they could find for cover. Tourists ditched their cameras and ran. The Crown Fountain turned into an ad hoc screen for civilians who frantically sought refuge from the unexpected violence.

I charged toward Vivian, shooting at Cassius’ attackers as I attempted to get closer. All my focus was singular — getting to her, getting her safe, out of this kill zone. Everything else was secondary. One of Cassius’s soldiers was quicker than the rest, more experienced or maybe just luckier. He got a clean shot in before I could get to them, aiming straight and true even amid the madness.

I watched it happen in gruesome, crystalline slow motion—the muzzle flash in the afternoon sun, the bullet leaving the barrel, arcing through space on a path that would take it straight into Vivian's heart. In freezing terror, she never saw the threat coming and didn’t have any idea that she was about to die.

I didn't think. It didn’t do math or hone strategy or measure consequences. Did no more than react, my body responding before my thinking mind could even know I was about to do it. Put myself between her and the bullet, so I'd take it.

The effect was like being hit with a sledgehammer swung by an exceptionally strong man. My shoulder bloomed in agony as the bullet ripped through my body armor which stopped but did not entirely halt it before burying itself inside me. Drive momentum and the impact blasted me into Vivian's body, driving it to the ground with mine hopefully out of the way from who was shooting.