Rocco had watched the warehouse for forty-five minutes but now it was time to go. He threw his binoculars into the duffel bag he had at his feet and zipped it up. He was on the roof of a derelict warehouse in the Lower West Side. Behind him in the bluing dawn was the empty parking lot of a Target, its buzzing backlit sign heard even across four lanes of roadway that were only occasionally cut with the hiss of a passing vehicle. It was 4 A.M. and the city was just coming awake. Ahead of him, beyond a crumbling concrete parapet, beyond the south branch of the Chicago River, was the skyline of the city’s skyscrapers, black against the emerging light. A wink of waking gold sunlight sparkled off the corner of the Prudential Plaza. Below him was the decaying ruin of warehouses that had thrived a hundred years ago when Chicago was a player in the agricultural trade. On his right hand side, looming above him like a medieval fortress, were thirty-five conjoined stone silos that had at one time contained grains. Defunct since even when his deadbeat father was a boy.

He stood on the rusted roof-girder of a warehouse. The material of the roof had collapsed long ago and it was a thirty foot drop to the rubble strewn floor below. Sheets of shredded tarpaulin hung in the rafters underneath him and they whipped and snapped in the winter wind while he’d watched the warehouse immediately adjacent to the one on which he was secretly perched.

He’d called the number Killian had given him. He’d talked to a man representing Flavio. The man spoke acceptable English, heavily accented with Italian. He told the man who he was. Told him he had Daniella, and told him he had an offer. The man put his hand over the phone and under the loud brushing of his skin against the microphone he heard the muffled sound of multiple male voices laughing and arguing in Italian. The man came back and he said they would meet in person. Told him these silos in the abandoned warehouse village near McKinley Park.

Rocco got here first and he surveilled. Pressed against concrete and rusted steel in the cold black winter night he watched them arrive. Hidden in his roost he watched, thirty feet above the floor, black eyes peering like a raven’s. Four SUVs with various modifications. Large tires with huge bright chrome wheels. One had neon under-lighting, burring the snowy ground below in a peculiar shade of teal. Thunderous EDM boomed from their interiors, stereos turned too loud. In the middle of their SUV formation was the sleek low shape of a candy yellow sports car. A Lamborghini. He assumed that must be Flavio. The five vehicles toured the grounds of the abandoned warehouses that segmented this broad concrete patch, settled on a building and then rose a ramp and disappeared inside the black yawning maw of a crumbling warehouse, their headlights leading the way. Rocco watched and listened. Heard their movements, heard their brittle voices through the cold air. Talking to one another in Italian. Now they were quiet. Now the sun was coming up.

If Daniella wanted this to be over but she wanted an end to the bloodshed there was only one way to do this. So he lowered his duffel silently back down to the floor below in a length of rope fed from a hank gripped in his right hand. He descended, retrieved his bag and stealthily made his way to the Target parking lot, snuck behind the building, to Killian’s car he’d left hidden between two dumpsters.

* * *

Up until today, hiding in a plumbing closet in the Empire Crest, wedged between pipes, trying to save the love of his life, had been his worst plan ever. This one today was much worse. He was stepping into a nest of vipers with bare feet. It was the kind of thing a man would do when he was in love.

The headlights of Killian’s old Camaro lit up a warehouse wall emblazoned with the bright colorful tags of graffiti, then swooped to the right as he came around the corner of one ruin, and dead ahead was a man waving him to the building where he already knew they had gathered. He passed the man, a joyless unsmiling sentinel hidden behind black sunglasses, jabbing a leather gloved hand towards the warehouse he'd watched them enter. The sun was in the sky now, very low, but the sky was cloudless and it lit the man in a strange summery gold but cast a long cold blue shadow behind him that almost touched the foot of the ramp he would ascend to enter the warehouse.

He steered the Camaro up the ramp, into the gaping gullet of the ruined building, and ahead he could see the congregation. The four black SUVs were parked in a circle, the yellow Lamborghini parked at a jaunty angle in comparison to them inside the ring that they formed. They were near the back of the warehouse and there was a raised concrete platform with long low steps rising up to meet it. On this platform there was a lone chair, and a blonde-haired man sat on it.

The Camaro rumbled in the enclosed space, deep and guttural, its heavy Detroit sound coming back at him off the crumbling walls. Standing in the circle of the cars were a dozen gangsters. Grim men dressed in black overcoats and parkas, rifles slung over their shoulders, their frosted breaths whispering above their heads as they watched him approach. One of them, toothpick in the corner of his mouth, stepped forward and jabbed a finger towards the floor at his feet indicating to where he wanted Rocco to draw the Camaro. He complied, bringing the grill to the man’s gesturing hand then putting the car in park. Guns were pointed at him now, a few of the men putting rifles up in their shoulders and sighting on him. He extended both hands out the open car window.

The one who stood at the hood, called to him, “Come on out,” and he nodded his head and waved his hand in a come-hither gesture. Rocco opened the car door from the outside then eased it wide with his boot. He stepped out.

The one at the hood with the toothpick stepped forward and indicated for Rocco to turn so he could be frisked and Rocco turned his back to him and put his arms out. Ahead of him, on the roof of the Camaro was a black box the size of a smartphone. Magnetized, it clung there and it was barely noticeable. Toothpick shoved him in the middle of his back and Rocco put his hands on the roof of the Camaro, one going around the black box. His ankles were kicked and he spread his legs wider. He was frisked from behind. Satisfied he had no weapon he was roughly spun around. Toothpick saw now that he held the black box. He tried to remove it from his hand and Rocco said, “I wouldn't do that if I were you.”

“Why not?” he sneered.

Rocco looked in his eyes and made a rumbling sound effect of an explosion. “It’s a detonator,” he said. The man took out a pistol and he pointed it in his face, just below the tip of his nose.

Rocco smiled and said, “I wouldn't do that either. It’s a kill-switch. Anything you might do that would take my grip off this box will blow all of us to kingdom come.” He thumbed over his shoulder and in the passenger seat was his duffel bag. Unzipped and yanked open, it was evident there were butcher paper wrapped explosive ingots that read C4. A network of wires criss-crossed over them under the open flaps of the bag.

Toothpick peered into the car, gun still leveled at Rocco and he shouted up to the throne in Italian what he was looking at.

Soft laughter filled the high open space of the warehouse. Then there was the flapping of wings as a small flock of pigeons scattered above them and moved from one end of the warehouse down to the other. Downy feathers floated around them all in their wake.

“Come,” the man on the chair commanded. Rocco smiled to the one with the toothpick and he eyed him back fiercely. Rocco made his way through the ring of SUVs and to the base of the steps.

“You’re as dangerous as they told me you were,” the man said from his throne. Flavio Vacca, the man from the photograph, Daniella's half-brother, was slumped luxuriously in a wooden chair. The chair was stained the color of cherry and it gleamed with polish. It looked like it belonged in a church, with a high back that extended two feet above Flavio’s head. It was carved with intricate details and Rocco had to imagine that he had brought it with him. Flavio was dressed in steel grey suit pants, a black turtleneck, over it he wore a leather coat with a sybaritic fur collar that his head leaned lazily into as he regarded Rocco through half-lidded eyes. The eyes were black and unfeeling, savage, but they sparkled with an intelligence. His hair was short, bleached blonde, thick, brushed forward messily like a handsome Julius Caesar. His voice was at once deep but grandiloquent—more in tone than grammar. The Italian accent was difficult for him to hide and that manufactured tone was one you would use if you wanted others to think you were educated. The Interpol file on Flavio said he grew up in a prigione-scuola, a sort of Italian reform school. His flair for luxury and drama was strikingly similar to the Taliban warlords of northern Afghanistan.

Rocco mounted the steps that led to the throne like he was ascending a dais. Flavio indicated to stop when Rocco’s eyes were level with his feet, ensuring he’d have to look up at him. Flavio thought he was royalty, or some warrior king but if he asked Rocco to kneel there would be bloodshed today.

Rocco said, “I can’t believe you let me get this close in a car. You should have frisked me at an outside perimeter.” He smirked and Flavio smirked back.

“You had a reputation. The broker told me you were deadly.”

“I am.”

“Are you really?” His smirk remained and he cocked his head sleepily, said, “Because I paid you a quarter million dollars and the target is still alive. That sounds, per me, like you are a terrible hit man. I think you even have killed four of my soldiers and put two of them in the hospital. Are you working against me?”

“They would have been fine if they didn't come for me.”

“And why did you not kill who you were paid to kill, dog?”

“No one is going to kill her.”

“No one is?” He chuckled. His derisive laugh brought supportive chuckles from a few of his gathered men.

“She’s not going to die.”

Flavio regarded Rocco coolly, his hand coming up and smoothing the lick of hair that hung down in a short peak over his forehead. He grinned again. “You know where she is... What makes you think we won't beat it out of you? Pull all the teeth out of your head until you’re begging to tell us?”

Rocco grinned wide. “You know I wouldn't talk.” He raised his hand and wiggled the fingers wrapped around the black box.

“Maybe not, but I know one of my men would love to take your body apart piece by piece. I owe him that. You killed his brother.”

“I wasn’t sure your little tribe of maniacs gave a shit about family.”

Flavio laughed, for a man with a low voice his laugh was shockingly high, came out like a stuttering bark. It would have sounded at home in a lunatic asylum.

Rocco cut his laughter off, said low and even, “Daniella is your sister.”

His laugh trailed off and he touched his eye as if the laughter had brought a tear. His eyes still on Rocco, he said aside to a nearby soldier, “Il mio cane sta investigando...” The soldier gave a short throaty laugh, then Flavio said to Rocco, “My dog has been snooping.”

“I’m not your dog, Flavio,” he said. “I'm nobody's dog. Not anymore. Our business is done. I’m keeping the down payment you gave me because you had men in the building that tried to kill me.”

“They tried to kill you because you didn't do the job. You left with her. Our business is not d—”

“No, you and I are done. But Daniella...Daniella has an offer.”

“I don't want anything from her.”

“Yes, you do. You want everything that is hers. You want her dead so you can take what her father left her. Her father is your father...”

“I don't just want her out of the picture so I can have her toys. I want to send a message to the parents. Let them know who’s come to their party.”

“She won't contest you. Daniella and I are leaving. The time for a message is gone. Your message will be in how you rule.”

“Rule?”

“She’ll give you the keys.”

“Keys to what?”

“The keys to the city, Flavio. Your father’s keys.”

“The fortune. The city,” he said, not a question. The parameters of his agreement.

“We need two days. Two days where we can move through the city freely. Two days where we’re not hunted. We’ll meet again and she will bring you what you want.”

“How can I trust you?”

“If I wanted you dead I could have got you through the roof of that Lamborghini when I watched you arrive. The bloodshed is over. How can I trust you?”

“You can't. I'm a bad person.”

Rocco’s eyes met his and they stared.

“Two days. You have two days. Daniella can get my house in order for me. Then we will meet here. Meet here and Daniella can come to me on her knees and kiss my ring.” He waved the ring finger of his right hand where there was a hunk of gleaming gold.

“Two days,” Rocco repeated, stared him down. Flavio's gaze didn't shrink. There was no way he would trust this killer but he knew he'd piqued the man's curiosity. His desire to see what would be brought to him was greater now than his desire to kill his sister. Rocco walked calmly down the three steps, crossed the concrete to his Camaro and got in. The car rumbled to life with a turn of the key and as he backed up, the space he'd been in was swallowed by mean-faced soldiers with rifles. They watched from behind their sunglasses as he backed all the way down the ramp. When he was out he spun the car around and it growled out of the decrepit expanse of the abandoned lot.

He turned left and headed into the rising sun, flipping the visor down to keep it out of his eyes. They had two days. Two days to come up with a plan that would keep this city from boiling over and one that would keep her alive. Daniella would think of something to appease Flavio. She knew the business. But she wouldn't kiss his ring. She wouldn't bow before him. Brother or not, the more he thought about it the more he wondered how he would keep himself from putting a bullet between the eyes of that smug Italian asshole.